off his forehead and kissed him. He smiled in his sleep.
Luke was already in bed when she crossed the hall to the bedroom. She left the door open, changed into her pajamas and climbed into bed. She snuggled under the covers and he drew her into the circle of his arms. He asked, "How come you left the door open?"
"Lucas is spending the night. I want to be able to hear him if he wakes up and calls us."
"Why didn't Paul take him back to the inn?"
"Because I told him not to disturb the child."
"I think today went well, don't you?"
She put her arms around him and gushed, "Oh, it was beyond wonderful!"
On Christmas Day the family slept in and then spent the day hiking and biking the trails around Gordes. Late in the afternoon, they gathered for a traditional American Christmas dinner. Chantal had picked up a lot of American recipes in nearly forty years in America. In addition, she invited Marianne and Christa to help not only with the menu and recipes, but with the cooking as well. Madeleine hung out in the kitchen, watching and learning, the way endless generations of young women have been indoctrinated into the Sisterhood of great cooks. The women cooked and talked and laughed. Chantal periodically disappeared into the living room to refill drinks for Christiane and the men.
Madeleine was a little offended that Christiane had not joined them in the kitchen. Her mother hushed her, "That is the way she was raised. She probably thinks we're uncouth for hanging out in here."
When Chantal came back in the kitchen Marianne asked her what they were doing. Chantal said, "They are all working."
Marianne said, "What?"
"They are working. Well, Mme. Christiane, Mssrs Georges, Paul and Richard are working. M. Luke is sitting on the floor coloring pictures with Lucas. Someone will have to help him get up off the flagstones when it is time to eat." She puffed, more offended by Luke sitting on the floor than by the rest of them working on Christmas Day.
Christa said, "I'm gonna kill him!" and headed toward the door.
Marianne stopped her. She put her arm around Christa and said, "Come. Look." They peeked into the living room where every single face was totally concentrated on their respective laptop computers. Every one of them was totally engaged in their work. Marianne said, "How can you deny them their passion?"
Luke saw them standing there and seemed to read their minds. He looked up, winked and glanced at his watch, mouthing "fifteen minutes." They knew he was going to break up the work party soon, so they backed off.
Christa glared at Richard, but he was oblivious. Luke winked at her and shooed her into the kitchen. Marianne said, "Luke's right, you know."
"About what?"
"As long as you don't need him for something, why not let Richard work whenever he wants to. He loves it so much. I know he spends lots of time with you, so it isn't like you're a neglected wife. Why do you get on his case about it?"
"Because it isn't good for him to work so much?"
"Why not? He loves it. It makes him happy. How can that not be good for him?"
Christa shook her head and said, "Oh, you're probably right. He's in good company here with this gang of workaholics, I guess. I guess I'll let him have his fun in his own way."
"That's the spirit! Now, let's go have fun in our way. Do you want to mash the potatoes or shall I?"
"I gotta tell you, Mom, I think Chantal is going to mash the potatoes, and I'm betting there won't be one single lump. I saw a ricer on the sink."
"You think you can eat smooth mashed potatoes."
"I don't know. I've never had totally creamy mashed potatoes. We always leave lumps."
"This is Chantal's kitchen, she calls the shots."
"Are you ever going to get used to having domestic help?"
"Probably not."
"How do you manage?"
"I pretend it is a plural marriage. Chantal is the number one wife. I'm the newbie. I simply do as I'm told."
Christa laughed so hard she couldn't catch her breath, but she also couldn't tell Madeleine or Chantal why she was so hysterical.
A little later, Marianne marched into the living room and announced that dinner would be ready shortly. Lucas asked if there were to be biscuits at dinner. Paul rolled his eyes and said, "God forbid that the child should go a few days without biscuits."
Marianne stood up and said, "To be honest, I'm having biscuit withdrawal myself." She turned to Lucas and said in her broadest Low Country drawl, "Why of course, sugah, there will be biscuits! Just give me a few minutes."
He beamed and said, "You called me 'sugah' just like my mawmaw."
Marianne smiled and said, "Well, let's just see how my biscuits stack up against your mawmaw's."
She disappeared into the kitchen and in no time the smell of biscuits wafted through the house as a top note over the turkey, dressing, ham and all the other sides. Chantal brought the rest of the food to the table while Marianne took the biscuits out of the oven.
She offered the first one to Lucas and the second to Luke. They both smiled and nodded vigorously with their mouths full. They both held two thumbs up - way up! The rest of the dinner was equally fabulous. Chantal, Christa and Marianne had each contributed their specialties and collaborated on everything else. Everyone said it was the best Christmas dinner any of them had ever tasted.
Christiane said she was a little embarrassed that she had nothing to contribute. She looked sad when she said, "I've never learned to make coffee, much less make any contribution to a meal like that. It makes me feel somewhat inadequate."
Christa leaned over and patted her hand saying, "All good cooks need appreciative eaters. You fill an extremely valuable role."
Richard gave her an impish look and said, "I always thought that was what men were for."
Christa nodded and said, "That, and cutting the grass." Then she felt foolish, she was pretty sure none of the men at the table other than her husband had ever cut the grass.
Georges saved him, "Christiane always tells me my main job is keeping her feet warm at night."
The conversation was light and affectionate through the rest of dinner. No one wanted dessert immediately after dinner, so they took their coffee into the living room to talk for a while. Marianne and Christa had a hard time walking away from the table without pitching in to help with the clean up. Chantal shooed them away, saying she had hired extra helpers for the aftermath.
As they lounged around in the living room, digesting their marvelous meal, Marianne shook her head and sipped her coffee and said, "This is the first time in my entire life I have walked away from the table on Christmas and not cleaned up."
Madeleine asked, "Maw Maw, when you owned the restaurant were you open on Christmas?"
"No. We closed on Christmas Eve at 9:00 p. m. and we didn't open again until breakfast the day after Christmas. It was the only day of the year the restaurant was closed. It was funny: your dad's parents ran a restaurant. My mother cooked. I cooked. Mama Delios cooked as did all her daughters and daughters in law. You'd think that the one day of the year we closed we'd order pizza or something. Not so! As soon as we closed on Christmas Eve, we started cooking for our family Christmas meals. The first meal we prepared was for after church on Christmas Eve. The Delios family went to Midnight Mass at the Greek Orthodox Church. We typically had 'supper' around 3:00 a. m., in the kitchen at the restaurant.
"On Christmas Day we went to the Delios' house and ate every manner of Greek treat imaginable. The women cooked all day preparing the feast.
"After all that, the women arrived at the restaurant by 5:30 a. m. the day after Christmas to start baking the bread for breakfast."
Christa smiled and looked a little chagrined, "And I fuss at Richard for working too hard."
Christiane said, "There's no such thing as working too hard if you totally love with what you do."
Richard jumped up and kissed Christiane on the cheek, then turned to Christa and pointed at Christiane saying, "SEE!?"
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Christa threw up her hands and said, "You are hopeless."
Richard cocked his head and said, "How many hours a day do you play the piano even outside of school."
"That's different."
Luke looked at her through narrowed eyes and asked, "Explain to us exactly how it's different."
"I play because I love to play."
Luke turned his hand palm up and made a graceful sweeping gesture that pointed at all the other adults, ending with himself, "And we, too, love what we do."
They were quiet for a while, sipping coffee and brandy and letting that sink in. They had not been paying attention to Lucas who had pulled out a very large piece of paper into the middle of the floor. He was intently drawing a picture of the room and all the people in it. It was an amazing drawing for the work of a four-year-old.
Christa commented quietly, "Looks like another artist is in the pipeline."
Paul smiled and said very softly, "I think he's got the makings of a set designer or an architect. He's fascinated with spaces and shapes. He drives his pre-school teacher crazy rearranging the room every day."
They watched Lucas concentrating and struggling to make the picture just right. Marianne was contemplating going into the kitchen to ask Chantal to serve dessert when Lucas sat up and looked around almost as though he were waking from a nap. Everyone in the room knew that feeling of being surprised by coming back to "normal" after a period of intense concentration. Lucas stood up and stretched, then he walked over to Marianne and climbed up in her lap.
He said, "I heard Madeleine call you Maw