But here’s the thing. Arthur is finished with doctors. There is something that has come upon him that he can’t quite explain. He is not disaffected or depressed; if anything, it’s quite the opposite. He has a lively and interesting home, full of love and laughter. He and Lucille and Maddy are like a modernized, downsized version of The Waltons, what with the way they all say good night to each other, every night. He looks forward to life as much as he ever did. But going to doctors? He is done with that. He’s an old man living an old man’s life. He thinks of himself as a caboose on a long, long train. The engine is close to the terminal; but the caboose is far from it. He’s all right. He’s Nola’s blossoms, and he’s ready.
—
As he and Maddy are ushered into the doctor’s office, Dr. Hunter rushes over to him. “How are you, sir!” he says, and shakes Arthur’s hand, looking obliquely into his eyes, probably at the yellowish color that has appeared in his sclera. Arthur mostly views this as a trick of the light, nothing to worry about.
“Hundred percent,” Arthur says. “And you?”
“Oh, just great,” the doctor says, and turns to Maddy. They have a conversation Arthur can’t quite hear, and then Dr. Hunter smears some goo on Maddy’s belly, and moves something that looks like a microphone around on it. Arthur nearly jumps out of his chair when he hears a loud, rhythmic whooshing sound.
“Hear it?” Dr. Hunter asks, smiling.
Arthur stares at him. “But is that…Is that the baby?”
“That’s the baby’s heart.”
“Is there something wrong?”
“No!” says Dr. Hunter. “Don’t you hear how strong that beat is?”
“Yes, but the loudness! It’s so loud!”
“Well,” Dr. Hunter says. “It’s amplified.”
“Even so,” Arthur says. “Must be a boy in there.”
“Fifty percent chance,” says Dr. Hunter, all smug-looking. He knows then, Arthur thinks. He tries to catch the doctor’s eye and wink at him, but Dr. Hunter is looking at Maddy now. Just as well. What would a wink mean, anyway? Well, it would mean that it was a boy. Who just might be called Arthur, you never know.
—
Two days before Thanksgiving, Maddy is coming back from having visited with the administration at the school she will be attending in the spring. It is still something she can’t quite realize, that she’ll be living in a dorm with her baby and her roommate, who will be another single mother, and attending classes. She was shown the dorm rooms, as well as the daycare center where her baby would be while she was in class. She saw the library, the gleaming wooden tables where she could go and study. She was told that free babysitting would be provided twice a week by students at the college, and that she herself would meet with the director of the program once a month just to be sure that she was doing all right with grades and with adjustment. One thing Maddy’s sure of is that she’ll be doing all right with grades. She can’t wait to get into that library.
As the bus nears the station, she lets go of the fantasy she was enjoying: herself in her dorm room in warm pajamas, snow falling, her baby sleeping and her with a textbook about photography on her lap. The only thing that isn’t paid for is books, and Arthur wants to pay for that, but Maddy won’t let him. She’ll have no trouble buying her own books. She’s saving money like crazy.
Before she goes home, Maddy will stop at the library to check out some movies. She used one of her paychecks to modernize the TV, and she likes to watch old movies with Arthur and Lucille. She likes the backgrounds even more than the main stories: the clothes, the telephones, the cars, the music, the dancing. She likes the language: Say! Gee, that’s swell! She loves the soft-focus shooting of the women, especially in their close-ups. (Gloria Swanson, with her grimacing smile and crazy-wide eyes: All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.)
Of course, Arthur and Lucille are her own personal handbook of archaic terms. She loves living with them and she loves them. Whenever she thinks this, that she loves them, there is a kind of momentary internal paralysis, a fear of being truly inside the words she’s thinking. But she is.
The other night, they ate the popcorn balls Lucille had made and watched Pennies from Heaven. Maddy, curled under a pink crocheted afghan, was struck by the lyrics of the song; the idea of happiness being payment for having endured adversity. Maddy’s life lately has been an onslaught of outsize good fortune. Deep inside is a voice wanting to taunt her, to tell her she is undeserving of it, to not trust it because it won’t last, good things never last. Or it tells her she will fuck up and lose everything. But she’s gotten better at tuning that voice out.
She gets off the bus and starts the walk to the library. The baby is moving inside and Maddy puts her hand reflexively to her side to feel the kicks. She is talking to the baby as she walks along, as she often does, when she sees Anderson’s car pull up to a stoplight. She stops walking. He doesn’t see her, but there he is, with a blond-headed woman he now leans over to kiss. Maddy can taste that kiss. She stands watching, her hand still pressing against her side, and the baby goes quiet, as though it, too, is watching. Despite everything, despite everything, she suddenly feels an awful longing to be back with him. It makes no sense. But inside, it’s as though her heart has been lassoed and is being gently tugged. For the first time, she is embarrassed about her big stomach. Her hand falls from her side.
She doesn’t have a boyfriend anymore, and she’s not sure she ever will again. Absurd to say that, perhaps; she’s young. But she has a child soon to be born. It makes things complicated.
And then, as the light changes and Anderson’s car takes off, she smiles again, because she is going home.
—
Arthur comes into the kitchen to find Lucille happily frantic. She’s sitting at the table finalizing the Thanksgiving Day menu.
“I have fourteen dishes planned so far,” she tells Arthur breathlessly, after he pours his coffee and sits down.
And then, when Arthur’s response is only a kind of start, she waves her hand. “Don’t worry, one dish is just cranberry-orange sauce, one is plain cranberry sauce, one is Parker House rolls, and four are desserts. It might be a bit much for just the three of us, but what’s better than Thanksgiving leftovers?”
“Nothing!” Arthur says, feeling a bit like a dog sitting up for his biscuit, but he’s thinking that’s going to be an awful lot of food. Good Lord, he eats less than Gordon lately. “Do you think maybe we should invite somebody?” he asks.
Lucille looks at him, frowning. “Who?”
Arthur can’t think of anyone. Seems like all of his friends are dead. Finally, “The mailman?” he asks.
“Oh, Arthur,” Lucille says. “Now you’ve gone and made me sad, thinking about how there’s nobody we can invite to Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Why can’t we invite the mailman?”
She drops her hand onto her pile of cookbooks. “You can’t just invite anyone! We don’t even know the mailman! Who is the mailman?”
“Well, he’s a real nice fellow,” Arthur says. “You know him! He’s tall, slender. Red hair. He’s got a beard. His name is…Eddie! That’s it! His name is Eddie.”
Now Lucille crosses her arms over her chest and regards him. “Eddie who? What’s his last name?”
Arthur looks down and stirs his coffee.
Lucille pats his hand. “I think it’s very sweet that you want to ask someone, Arthur. It’s a nice impulse. But it’s too late to do that now. People have made their plans.”
“What about people who take your classes?”
“Arthur.”
“What?”
She sighs.
“What?” Arthur asks.
“When you’re a teacher—and remember, I say this from experience—when you’re a teacher, you have to maintain a professional distance. Okay? Remember when you were a kid and you never wanted to see your teacher in a bathroom? Well, it’s still like that. I can’t have my students over here all invo
lved in my personal life. It would be breaking the fourth wall!”
Arthur looks around. “What fourth wall?”
“Ha ha. You know exactly what I mean.”
“Well,” Arthur says, “I still think we could find someone to invite. What about Maddy’s father?”
“Are you kidding?” Lucille’s eyes narrow and she leans in closer to speak quietly. “He’s not such a nice person, you know. He certainly wasn’t very nice to Maddy. Why do you think she’s living with us? That poor girl. No. I don’t think we should invite her father.”
“Maybe we should ask Maddy,” Arthur says.
Maddy comes into the kitchen, all dressed for the day, bright red sweater, black corduroy pants. She’s the prettiest thing. Lucille says Maddy looks just like Ava Gardner, and the girl does bear a slight resemblance. “Ask me what?” she says.
“Nothing,” Lucille says, but at the same time Arthur asks loudly, “Would you like to invite your father for Thanksgiving?”
“Arthur!” Lucille says, drawing back from her pile of cookbooks and in the process knocking one down onto the floor.
“I’ve got it,” Maddy says, and hands the book to Lucille. And then, to Arthur, “Yes, I would like to invite my dad. If it’s okay.”
“Well, of course it’s okay,” Lucille says, and Arthur has to work hard not to roll his eyes. “Does he like turkey?”
What a question, Arthur thinks. Who doesn’t like turkey? It would be like not liking water. Though, knowing Lucille, if she gets any sense that the man might not like turkey, she’ll do something like go out and buy a prime rib. She says she’ll never spend all the money she’ll get for her house before she dies, but at the rate she’s going, Arthur’s not so sure. He was worried she might have regrets about selling, but the only time she looks over at her house is to make comments about what the new people might do. Yesterday, she was in the kitchen laying out ingredients for her monkey bread class and she glanced over at her house and said, “I hope whoever moves in has the good sense not to put shutters anywhere.”
“I think my dad likes turkey,” Maddy says, and Lucille and Arthur look at each other.
Arthur suspects that neither he nor Lucille will ask Maddy if she never had Thanksgiving dinner. It can’t be true that they didn’t go to someone’s house for the holiday. Or out to some restaurant. If it is true, he doesn’t want to know.
But then Maddy says, “We always had Chinese on Thanksgiving. On all the holidays, actually. I know he likes chicken and duck. So he must like turkey.”
“I’ll get a duck, too,” Lucille says. But then Maddy and Arthur both say, “No!” and she says, “All right! I had no idea where I was going to get one anyway.”
“Tell him to come at four in the afternoon,” Lucille says. And though her lips are pinched tightly together, she attempts a smile. Arthur can’t help it; he thinks she looks constipated.
“Well, this is just fine!” Arthur says. “I’ll get some wood and we’ll build a fire that day.”
“I’ll get a wreath for the door,” Maddy says.
Gordon, sitting next to Arthur, meows. People think cats don’t want to join in, but they’re wrong.
—
Lucille lies in bed, going over everything she’ll have to do tomorrow. She’s got lists taped to all the kitchen cupboards. She’s made the pies and the cranberry sauces and the cupcakes and the whipped cream and the reception salad and the rolls. She made pumpkin tea breads for the guests to take home. Well, the guest. One guest. Maddy’s father. She’s still not so sure it was a good idea to invite him.
She tries to be a good Christian. Jesus went around forgiving everyone, though her personal belief is that he went a little too far with that business.
But then she turns over onto her back and thinks about this: there’s something she heard once, something about if you can’t forgive everything, you can’t forgive anything.
Murderers in prison. All those do-gooders who go out and teach them to read and write, and some of those prisoners get a damn good college education, to say nothing of meals and a bed, all courtesy of Lucille and other taxpayers, thank you very much. But murderers in prison. Why did they do it? What led them to do it? Was it in them or put in them?
Oh, all right, she’ll be gracious. “Welcome!” “Thank you for coming!” “And what do you do for a living?” “Maddy tells me you’re quite the fisherman!” and so on and so forth. She’ll do it for Maddy, because she loves her. Even though…
Lucille turns on the bedside light. Sits up at the side of the bed and tries to calm her roiling feelings. She’s worried that if Maddy spends much time with her father, she’ll lose confidence in herself. And maybe she’s a tiny bit worried that Maddy will go back to him.
Then Lucille sees an envelope slide beneath her door. She fetches it and sits back down to read it. They do this sometimes, slide notes under each other’s doors. Maddy finds the most beautiful stationery at the Goodwill and shares it with Lucille. They write notes and give each other stories from the paper or magazines, cartoons, recipes, poems. Sometimes Maddy gives her a crossword puzzle because she’s heard such things help aging brains. Well. Sorry, Lucille has no time for such things. You finish and…what? You frame it? No. Lucille will stick to her cooking and her arts and crafts. That uses her brain quite enough, thank you.
Lucille opens the envelope. She hopes this is one of those outrageous stories about movie stars embarrassing themselves. She has to admit she likes reading those. Of course, she’s not the only one, how do you think those magazines make so much money? She does wish they would bring back periodicals with a bit more class: Motion Picture. Modern Screen. Photoplay. Somewhere, pressed in some book, she still has a studio shot of Lana Turner that just takes your breath away. Lucille likes gossip, it’s true, but she also used to like the way that movie stars seemed so different from regular people. She didn’t agree with something she read in a magazine at the nail parlor Maddy took her to for her birthday—a pedicure, Lucille got, which she had always thought of as vain and practically sinful, but oh, my, did it feel good! But anyway, there was a column in the magazine called “Movie Stars! They’re Just Like Us!” No, they’re not. And we don’t want them to be! Just like her, as a teacher. She knows her students want to keep her elevated.
Lucille gets out her glasses and unfolds the paper decorated with two bluebirds. It’s a note from Maddy, written in her purple ink, a quote of some kind. Maddy finds the best quotes from all kinds of places, sometimes even from the packs of letters she finds at estate sales. This one says:
What is it that makes a family? Certainly no document does, no legal pronouncement or accident of birth. No, real families come from choices we make about who we want to be bound to, and the ties to such families live in our hearts.
Beneath the quote, Maddy has written, Thank you for inviting my father, who is not my real family, but to whom I am also tied.
Lucille presses the note to her bosom. Oh, she loves that girl. She will be the best Thanksgiving hostess ever. Someone should come and film her, they could pick up a lot of good tips. She will be Martha Stewart, or whoever is Martha Stewart these days. She supposes it could be a gay man, that might be a nice change.
She goes back to bed, turns out the light, and can hear herself start to snore before she falls off into sleep. She doesn’t know why so many people hate snoring. She finds it soothing. White noise, with a ruffle.
—
On Thanksgiving Day, Maddy’s father arrives ten minutes early. From the living room window, where she and Arthur have just finished building a fire, Maddy sees his car idling at the curb.
“My dad is here!” she says.
Arthur moves to the window and looks out. He knocks, gestures for Steven to come in.
“He can’t see you,” Maddy says.
“What?”
“He can’t see you!”
“Oh.” Arthur shuffles slowly toward the coat closet.
“I’ll get him,
” Maddy says. “You’d better go and tell Lucille he’s here.”
Maddy throws on a jacket and runs outside. Her father sees her before she reaches him, and nods. He turns off the engine and gets out of the car, and his eyes go to her stomach, then to her face. He looks like a man who is stricken, trying not to look stricken. He is a man who is stricken, trying not to look that way. He’s carrying a wicker basket covered with orange cellophane.
Maddy clasps her hands together. “Come on in!” she calls, shivering.
“Okay,” he says, but he doesn’t move.
“Dad?”
“Okay,” he says, and moves toward her. “You look good,” he says, when he reaches her. “It’s nice to actually see you in person.”
“You, too. Long time.” She looks him directly in the eye, and it comes to her that she can’t remember ever having done this. She looks him in the eye and she stays even.
“You cold?” he asks.
“I’m fine.” She takes his arm and they go inside, where they are greeted by Lucille in her Thanksgiving (cavorting turkeys) apron and by Arthur in his dress slacks and white shirt and blue paisley tie, and by Gordon, who hangs back but lets himself be seen in the little orange-and-brown-checked bow tie Maddy put on him. As for Maddy, she’s wearing a brand-new green velvet maternity dress. Her father is in a tan V-neck sweater and brown pants, and Maddy thinks he looks handsome.
“This is for you,” Steven says, handing the wicker basket to Lucille.
“Well, heavens!” says Lucille. “Will you look at this!” She peers through the cellophane. “Oh, well, Hickory Farms! Who doesn’t love that! We will every one of us enjoy this.” She smiles at him. “Thank you very much. And welcome!”
“Yes, welcome!” Arthur says. “Would you like a glass of wine? We have red, white, and rosé.”
“And sparkling cider,” Lucille says. “Also we have some sparkling water.”
“And beer,” Arthur says.
Maddy has been standing off to the side biting her lip. Now she smiles.
“Well, a glass of red wine would be great,” Steven says.