Lucy didn't say anything.
Sari sat down on the sofa next to her brother and took his hand. “Charlie?”
He glanced up. “Hi, Sari,” he said casually, as if it hadn't been over six months since they'd last seen each other.
She took his hand and squeezed it hard. He squeezed back. He didn't like to be hugged, so Sari always greeted him that way, and he always responded in kind. She was never sure whether it was an affectionate gesture on his part or just a learned response, but it felt affectionate to her.
“How've you been, mister?” she said.
“Good,” he said, still watching the TV. Star Wars was playing—the original one, with Mark Hamill.
Sari said, “Charlie. This is my friend Lucy. Do you remember her from high school?”
He shook his head.
“Please say hi to her, Charlie.”
“Hi,” he said, watching the TV.
“Hi,” Lucy said. “Nice to see you again.”
“Look at her, please,” Sari said. “Charlie, look at Lucy and shake her hand.”
Lucy extended her hand, and Charlie obligingly stuck out his own hand toward the TV set.
“No,” Sari said. “Not like that. Look at Lucy. Look at her, or I’ll turn the TV off.”
“Oh, leave him alone!” her mother said from the doorway, behind Lucy's back. Startled, Lucy dropped her hand as Eloise Hill came forward. “You know how I feel about this, Sari.” She turned to Lucy. “Sari likes to get Charlie all worked up.”
“He should know how to greet people,” Sari said.
“Stop it,” her mother said. “I want you to stop it now. It's not going to be like this, not this time. It's Thanksgiving. We are not going to ruin it by fighting.”
“Who's fighting?” Sari said. “I’m just trying to help him.”
“You're not trying to help him, you're trying to change him. Let him be himself. He is what he is. Why can't you accept that?”
“Because he could be better than this,” Sari said. “I’ve seen so many kids turn around, Mom. Adults, too. What Ellen does is amazing—”
Her mother made a noise of disgust. “Here we go again, with the amazing Ellen.”
“Please let me take him to see her. Please. I’m begging you.”
“He doesn't like to leave the house. It makes him nervous.”
“That's a reason to get him out more. Take him to do fun things, so he—”
“There was a time,” her mother said, “when you begged me to keep him at home all day long. When you said he shouldn't have to go to school, that he was better off at home, that you were better off with him at home. Or don't you remember?”
“I remember,” Sari said. “I was just a kid.”
“You said the other students were mean to him at school, even violent sometimes, and he needed to be somewhere safe. You begged me to send him to private school—remember? And when I said we couldn't afford it, you said, ‘Can't we just keep him at home then?’”
“I didn't know anything,” Sari said. “I know more now.”
“We had to send him to school then,” her mother said. “It was the law. But in a way you were right. He's always been happiest at home. I mean, look at him now. He's completely in the moment, just happy to be here.”
“That's because he doesn't know any better. You haven't let him see what else is out there, what he might be capable of. He could have friends, a job, interests outside of sitting on his ass watching movies—”
“Watch your language,” Sari's mother said, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. “This is who Charlie is. And if you can't accept him the way he is, if all you can do is judge him without sympathy or kindness, then you have no right to sit there and hold his hand and claim that you love him.”
“Oh, for God's sake!” Sari flung her hand out. “Loving someone doesn't mean you leave him alone—loving someone means you want to make things better for him. It means you don't just leave him with a stack of Balance Bars and the TV turned on all day long because that's what's easy for you.”
“Oh, so now I’m a neglectful mother?” Sari's mother said. Her voice had gotten very high. “You come waltzing in here a couple times a year and accuse me of being some sort of ogre, but you know nothing about our lives. Just because you think Charlie's not a good enough brother for you—”
“Do you really think that's what I’m saying?”
“Let me tell you something: your brother is a kinder, gentler, far more spiritual being than you'll ever be—”
“He watches movies and game shows all day long. How is that spiritual?”
“I’m through discussing this with you,” her mother said with a little stamp of her well-shod foot. “I’ll simply say this: if you want to stay a minute longer in this house, then you'll treat its occupants with respect. If you can't do that, then—much as it pains me—I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I will not let you ruin another family holiday.” She turned to Lucy. “Lucy, you, of course, are welcome in my house, now and at any time. I hope you'll stay, no matter what.“
“Thanks,” Lucy said with a panicked look at Sari.
“It's okay,” Sari said. “I’ll behave. There's no point to any of this, anyway.”
“And we'll have a nice, civilized dinner together?” her mother said.
“You go on in and set up, Mrs. Hill,” Lucy said. “We'll be right there.”
“But no more fighting,” Sari's mother said. “It's just too hard on us all.”
“Of course not,” Lucy said. “Don't you worry.”
Eloise Hill left the room. For a minute or two, the three adults in the room silently watched planets exploding on the television screen. Then Sari looked at Lucy. “You see?” she said.
Lucy sat down and put both her arms around Sari's shoulders. “We'll just get through dinner and then go.” She glanced at Charlie. His lips were moving in sync to the movie's dialogue. She said quietly, “Poor guy.”
“Yeah,” Sari said. “I used to fantasize about grabbing him and making a run for the door. Not really doable, though.”
“Probably not, given your relative sizes,” Lucy said. “She doesn't really just let him watch TV all day, does she?”
“I don't know,” Sari said. “I honestly don't know. But every time I come to visit, this is where I find him. He used to notice me more, used to actually seem glad I was here. Now it barely registers. And the worst part—I mean it's all the worst part—but the worst part is someday she'll die and then what? It'll be too late. He won't have any skills to deal with the world, even if he wants to.” Her voice dropped to almost nothing. “She won't die soon enough for me to help him.”
There was a pause. Then, “I could kill her now, if it would help,” Lucy said.
Sari leaned against her. “That's why I love you—you always know the right thing to say.” She rested her head on Lucy's shoulder, and they sat like that until Sari's mother called them all in for dinner.
III
Kathleen wore the necklace Kevin had given her, and his father spotted it immediately. “Tiffany's?” he said, gesturing to her neck, after giving her a paternal kiss on the cheek.
She nodded. “From your son.”
“Tell him to get you diamonds next time,” he said with a wink. “A pretty girl like you should wear diamonds. Kevin should know that already, but he's always been a slow learner.”
Kathleen looked at Kevin, who smiled at her as if his father had just said something nice.
They sat down to eat soon after she arrived. First they had pumpkin soup, fragrant with cinnamon and cloves, then roast turkey with three different kinds of stuffing steaming in separate crystal bowls, mashed potatoes golden with butter and garlic, warm rolls and cranberry sauce and green beans, all of which was followed by the traditional desserts—pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and chocolate cake—and hot fresh coffee. The food was brought to the table by servants wearing black and white and cooked by the Porters’ aging resident chef, a Fr
ench woman named Marguerite who came out at the end of the meal to receive their thanks and congratulations. Caro blew her a kiss. Jackson thumped her on the back. Marguerite staggered back to the kitchen, looking exhausted but triumphant.
Obscene amounts of food were left over, both because there had been way too much to begin with, and also because the women of the family—the sisters-in-law and Caro—had barely eaten anything. None of them had touched any of the stuffing, let alone all three kinds. Kathleen, who had eaten six eggs for breakfast, still managed to put away ten times as much food as any of the other women.
After dessert had been cleared, Jackson uttered a quiet “Ahem.” Every face immediately turned to him. “If the women will excuse us, I do have a couple of small business matters to go over with the men.” He held up his hand as if to forestall objections, even though there weren't any. “I know, I know, its a holiday. But it's not often I get a chance to sit down with all three of my boys, and I’d like to take advantage of this time together to address a few important items that have come up recently.” Kathleen wondered if anyone was going to point out that he saw all three of his sons at the office every day. But:
“Of course,” one of the sisters-in-law said immediately.
“You should!” the other said—the one who had kids, a boy and a girl, who had eaten a few bites of food at the table, then started hitting each other before one of the women in black and white had whisked them out of the room.
As they all rose to their feet and moved away from the table, Kathleen said to Kevin, “We'd better get going—I told my mom we'd be there at six.”
“I can't go right now,” Kevin said. “My dad—”
“It's already past six-thirty.”
“Can you call her and tell her we'll be late?”
She lowered her voice. “Can't you just skip your father's meeting?”
“That's not a good idea,” he said, his eyes flickering over to check where his father and brothers were. They hadn't left the room yet.
“Why not? You'll see him on Monday.”
“This stuff is important, Kathleen. I can't not be there. It wouldn't be right. Can't you just wait until we're done?”
“How long will it take?”
“Half an hour?” he said with no conviction. “Maybe less, maybe more. I honestly don't know.”
“In that case, do you mind if I head on over to the McMansion by myself?”
He looked relieved. “Not at all. You should. I’ll call you as soon as I’m done and join up with you there.”
He kissed her lightly on the lips and then scurried to catch up with his brothers and father, who were leaving the room in a tight knot. Kathleen doubted she would see him at her sisters’ later.
IV
Oh, Lord,” Eloise Hill said, “we thank you for your bounty and for bringing us all together on this special day and for providing us with food for our table and shelter for our bodies and…”
She went on for a while longer like that.
Sari rolled her eyes at Lucy, who kicked her in the shin under the table.
“Can we eat now?” Sari asked as soon as her mother had finally said “Amen” and lifted up her head. “Or do we have to thank God for giving us the 405 freeway, too? Because, you know, we couldn't have actually gotten here without it.”
“Here, Lucy,” Sari's mother said, picking up a pretty painted bowl. “Please try the potatoes. I may not have made them myself, but I tasted them in the kitchen and I must say they're delicious. A tiny bit on the salty side …”
“Yum,” said Lucy, who hadn't touched a potato in any form in over five years. She took the bowl and made a show of putting a spoonful on her plate.
“Who's having wine?” asked Sari's father. It was the first thing he had said all afternoon, other than a brief, vague greeting.
“I’d definitely like a glass of wine,” Sari said, and Lucy pushed her own glass toward Gerald Hill and said, “Me, too, please.”
Everyone had a glass of wine, except for Charlie, who drank white milk and ate only the mashed potatoes. After he had finished his plateful of potatoes, he got up from the table without another word and clomped his way back into the family room.
“If you're not going to make him sit through dinner, you could at least teach him to excuse himself,” Sari said to her mother.
“Charlie knows he's excused. We don't stand on formalities here.” Her mother extended her empty wineglass into the air in front of her. Her husband leaned forward and refilled it. They didn't look at each other. Eloise took a sip of wine and turned to Lucy. “Did you see the expression on his face when I said grace? It was—what's the word? Gerald, what's the word?”
“The word for what?”
“You know. When someone feels God's grace on them.”
He shrugged. “I don't know. Happy?”
“No, not happy,” she said. “It begins with a b.”
“Balmy?” Sari suggested.
“Beatific!” Her mother captured the word with delight. “That's the word. Beatific. Charlie looked positively beatific.” She hitched her chair closer to Lucy. “They say people like Charlie are closer to God than the rest of us,” she said in a low, confiding voice. “And I believe it. He sees things we don't.” She paused, and Lucy made a polite little “Huh” kind of noise.
Sari's mother took that as encouragement. She took several sips of wine and then continued, gesturing with the glass. “When I see someone—a stranger—with a child who you can tell right away is special—not like the other kids—I go right on up to her, no matter where we are, even in the supermarket, and I say, ‘We're the lucky ones. We're blessed. God sends us these special children because He trusts us to take good care of them for Him.’” She put down her glass and touched Lucy's arm lightly with her damp fingertips. “I can't tell you how many women have hugged me after I’ve said that. Just burst into tears and hugged me. It's a wonderful thing to make a connection like that. I fly home after one of those encounters. I literally fly home.”
“How nice,” Lucy said. “Really. That's really nice. Do you—”
“We really are the lucky ones, you know,” Eloise said. “Those of us with special children. God chooses us because He knows we're exceptionally strong.”
“You're just all God's little teacher's pets, aren't you?” Sari said. “You get to clap erasers and raise the autistic kids. Hey, maybe if you're really good, he'll give you some boils on your ass.”
“More wine?” her father said and took the opportunity to refill his glass as well as hers. He peered at the bottle. “Better open another. This one's almost gone.” He got up and walked heavily out of the room.
“God has a plan for Charlie,” Sari's mother told Lucy, pinning her in place with that hand on her arm. “He has a plan for every child. People like that Ellen woman think that they're making a difference with their mumbo-jumbo, but the path any child takes is already determined by God. He decides what will be.”
“Que será, será,” Lucy said with a wild and desperate gaiety.
“What we do at the clinic works,” Sari said. “I could show you studies—”
Her mother finally acknowledged her, but only by making a phhhtt noise and waving her hand dismissively. “Studies. Oh, please. You can't tell from those. Take any child and look at him again a few years later. Who's to say what he would have been as opposed to what he is? Only the Supreme Being. Not us. Certainly not some scientist collecting data.” She spat out the last word as if it were repulsive to her.
“You've got it all backward,” Sari said. “Science is the one thing that does tell us anything. It shows us that when kids are worked with the right way, they improve.”
“No,” Eloise said. “You can fuss and bother and drive the children crazy with all your therapy jibber-jabber, but in the end, it's all up to Him.”
“I wish to hell he'd open up a clinic then,” Sari said. “We have a waiting list at ours. The least he could do is take up some of the
slack.”
“More wine?” said her father, appearing in the doorway with a freshly opened bottle.
V
Kathleen's mind wandered on the drive over to her sisters’ house, and she found herself thinking not about the people and the meal she had just left, but about cooking with Sam Kaplan that morning. He had taken it all so seriously that of course she had to rebel and fool around every way possible. He wouldn't let her off the hook, not even when she dropped an egg on the floor and it broke into a huge mess—just insisted that she clean it up, and then forced her to crack the other eggs correctly, his hand guiding hers, his arm against hers, his body close behind hers.
If he had been any other guy between the age of fifteen and sixty, Kathleen would have suspected him of using the cooking as an excuse to get physically close to her. But Sam seemed genuinely determined to teach her to cook and his expression was one of grim determination rather than flirtation. And yet…
She left the thought dangling. She didn't know why.
She had arrived at her sisters’. She rolled down her window and punched in the security code for the gate. The man who installed it had suggested they program in a new number every six months. They had never changed it from his original example. It was 1111 and would, Kathleen suspected, remain 1111 until someone else lived there.
Her mother was already opening the front door by the time Kathleen had parked her car and walked up the steps. “Where have you been?” Her mother threw her arms around her. “You're late.”
“Sorry,” Kathleen said. It felt good to be hugged by her mother, even if their height differences made it a little silly. Caro hadn't hugged Kevin, had just given him and Kathleen equally distant air kisses. “Kevin's father—”
Her mother was already pulling her toward the dining room. “We started without you. We're almost done.”
“Good. I already ate. I told you we'd go to Kevin's first.”
“Where is Kevin?” Her mother looked back over Kathleen's shoulder as if he might appear.