Relatively normal, p.6
Relatively Normal, page 6
I ought to climb back into bed and succumb to the sandman again, but Sam crooks his finger at me in a come-hither kind of way that I’m totally helpless to resist. I grab my robe off the back of the desk chair, put it on, take one more look at a sleeping Ethan, and tiptoe out the door.
When I reach the bottom of the stairs, I rethink going outside for approximately six minutes, hoping the intruder has given up on me and has had the good sense to leave. I look out the peep hole in the front door and realize no such voodoo has occurred. He’s standing there with his hands in his pockets and a huge smile on his face, staring right back at me.
Unlocking the deadbolt on the door, which has been painted nearly every color under the sun during my parents’ thirty-year tenure in this house, I inhale like it’s my last breath on earth and step out into the bracing cold.
Sam steps inward. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
I push him farther out into the elements. “Why in the world would I do that?”
Batting hypnotic blue eyes at me, he answers, “Because it’s freaking cold out here and you’ve kept me waiting for fifteen minutes.”
I’ve kept him waiting? For fifteen minutes? Try fourteen years, buddy! I’m so furious, I briefly contemplate beaning him with one of my dad’s spittoons. He notices where my eyes dart to and seems to make a pretty accurate guess at my intentions, which is probably why he reaches out to grab my hands. He doesn’t have gloves on, but his hands are still warm, so very warm. Warm enough to trigger flashbacks of happier times that I have no business remembering.
They’re bigger than I remember and they totally envelope mine. Tears unconsciously fill my eyes, and I hang my head to try to compose myself. When I finally look up, it’s to see Sam staring down at me with such tenderness and yearning that I want to crawl between his arms and sink right into him.
I should not be having these feelings.
Yet, this is the face I’d thought I’d wake up to every morning of my life. This is the face I thought I’d see in my children, the one it took me years to get over. It’s the face I currently want to kiss and punch at the same time.
Sam leans in, pulls me tight to him, and releases one word with such longing it’s all I can do not to jump him. “Cat.” The sound pours over me like warm maple syrup, thick and sweet, full of anticipation and possibility.
I shake my head, trying to free the hold he has over me. “Sam. Why are you here?”
Still clutching me tightly, his eyes plead with mine as he answers, “I’m here to apologize. I’m so sorry about what happened between us. About how it ended. I never thought we’d go this long without seeing each other. I thought I’d be saying this to you years ago.”
Note, he doesn’t say, “I’m sorry we ended.” He says, “I’m sorry about how we ended.” And of course, he could have said this to me any time in the last decade if he’d ever bothered to pick up the phone.
I don’t want his apology, now. And if I did, I’d want him on his knees begging for forgiveness—perhaps with his head covered in honey right next to a swarming hive of bees. I’d want him aching with remorse and regret. I’d want him to feel a thousand times the pain I felt the first two years after he devastated me, and what I felt every single time after that when I recalled any memory of high school. Because he was at the center of every recollection that was worth having.
With a bionic strength that can only be rooted in total devastation and years of heartache, I pull my hands away, square my shoulders and smile, “Thanks for that. I appreciate your coming by.” Then I step back.
The look on his face is priceless. I don’t know what he was expecting to happen, but this isn’t it. And while I’d like nothing more than to march him up to the hay loft and relive some of our more special moments, I force myself to say, “I’ll see you later today at Thanksgiving dinner.” Then I walk through the front door like some kind of flipping superhero. Wonder Woman has nothing on me.
Sam Hawking is my past. He’s had his time in my life and that time is over. I’m not the innocent, naïve girl I once was. I’m a successful, happily engaged woman, who’s tougher than she looks. I’m going to show Sam who I am at dinner, and he’s going to rue the day he walked away from my awesomeness.
With my resolve firmly in place, I go back up to the room I’m sharing with my fiancé and fall right back to sleep—only to be tortured by dreams of what might have been.
Dreaming of the Devil
“SAM!” I yell out the front door at the top of my lungs. “Catch!” I hurl the popsicle like a torpedo shot out of the business end of a warship. The little league practices are sure coming in handy. No other nine-year-old can throw as fast as I can.
He reaches out and grabs it midair like a pro. “Yum, cherry, my favorite!” While he’s tearing the wrapper off, he says, “Hurry up, Cat, I have to go soon. We’ll never have time to finish if you don’t move it.”
We’re playing twenty questions and have only gotten to seven. It’s just so darn hot out, we needed something to take the edge off. I demand, “Fine, you’re twenty years old. Would you rather marry Brittany Stephens or eat a dead frog covered in dung beetles?”
“Can I cook the frog first or do I have to eat it raw?” he asks.
I stare up into the clouds and think for a second before answering, “You can boil it, but you can’t grill, and you can’t use any barbecue sauce or anything.” As an afterthought, I add, “And you have to eat the skin, too.” Sam always uses barbecue sauce to cover up the taste of food he doesn’t like.
He scratches his head. “Can I use salt?”
I roll my eyes and bite the tip off my popsicle, savoring the sweetness as it drips down the back of my throat. “Nope.”
He thinks for a second. By the look on his face, his answer could go either way. Finally, he asks, “Would I have to kiss Brittany?”
“Duh! You’d be married. Of course, you’d have to kiss her.”
He licks his popsicle until his lips begin to turn red before answering, “I guess I’d marry Brittany. She’s not so bad.”
I pick a handful of grass and throw it at him. “Last year you said you’d eat the frog and the dung beetles and you didn’t even ask for barbecue sauce.” I taunt him, “You loooooooove Brittany. You want to marry her and kiss her . . .” I make kissy sounds as I jump up and dance around in circles, “Sam and Brittany sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G . . .”
Before I can finish, Sam leaps at me and tackles me to the ground in punishment for teasing him. “Fine, I’ll eat the frog!”
“Too late,” I announce. “You love Brittany and I’m going to tell everyone.”
He threatens, “You tell anyone, and I’m going to tell them you peed your pants in second grade during our Christmas concert.”
I inhale deeply. “No fair! You promised to take that secret to the grave.”
He challenges me with his big blue eyes. “Neither one of us says anything, deal?” Then he sticks out his hand for me to shake.
I glare at him for a long minute before licking my hand and shaking his. “Deal. But I’m done playing this stupid game.”
“Oh, no!” he declares. “You only answered six questions, and I’ve answered seven. You’ve got one more before we’re even.”
I drop back on the ground, close my eyes, and accept my fate. “Fine, what do you want to know?”
He makes a low humming noise in the back of his throat before he says, “You’re sixteen and you’ve just learned how to drive. You want to go out with Sarah and go cow tipping, but your parents won’t let you. Do you steal their keys and go anyway, or do you stay home like a loser and watch TV?”
I scoff, “You suck at this game. First of all, of course I’m gonna go tip cows. But I’m not stupid enough to take my parents’ truck without permission. I’m gonna make you pick me up.”
Sam laughs and slaps his hands on his jeans. “And I will, too. Cause you know I can’t wait til we’re old enough to go cow tipping.”
The memories flood my dreams throughout the night, breaking through like water breaching a dam, wreaking destruction on the low-lying fields. Sam Hawking was my best friend long way before he was my boyfriend. We played together, shared secrets with one another, poured over pictures in the National Geographic we had no business looking at, and always stood up for each other no matter what. All that before we even shared our first kiss. We played twenty questions every year until he broke my heart. He’s entwined in my DNA in such a way I’ll probably need an exorcism to get rid of him.
In my foggy sleep-brain, I order myself to call Pastor Abernathy in the morning to set it up.
I’m Thankful for Gin
I look at the clock and discover it’s already nine. Images of last night with Sam, both in the front yard and in my dreams, fill my mind. Damn that man! Why couldn’t he leave well enough alone and stay away from me?
Ethan’s bed is already made, so I know he’s up and at ’em and ready for another day in bedlam. I hear my mom call up the stairs, “Shake your tail, Cat! We’ve got loads to do!”
When most people think of Thanksgiving dinner, their minds immediately go to images of the first Thanksgiving, the one they saw illustrations of in history books during elementary school years. The white man and the Native American sharing a feast of corn and brotherhood, side-by-side in harmony, passing the peace pipe.
It might briefly wander to images of a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving with Snoopy serving buttered toast and pretzels, before landing on the scene of a happy family, holding hands, going around the table giving thanks for the bounty in their lives and for the people they’re sharing their lives with.
Images of giant turkeys stuffed with sausage and acorn stuffing come to mind. Whipped potatoes, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pies made by loving hands. A fire crackles in the background and classical music fills the pockets of air not already consumed by sheer gratitude. Our celebration is nothing like that.
A Masterton Thanksgiving is more a tribute to our Scottish roots than our American ones. The table is set with our family plaid, instead of the requisite autumnal colors one would expect. My mom adorns it with a very large bucket of fake heather, as the real stuff isn’t in bloom in late November. The purple clashes tremendously with our colors of bright gold, green, and red, but no one seems to care.
My dad wears full-chieftain regalia, including a kilt, vest, suit coat, bow tie, knee-socks and feather in his cap. It’s worth noting he’s been wearing the same outfit since I can remember. As his girth has increased dramatically since my childhood, it’s become a bit of challenge for him to get into it. He’s taken to squeezing into a man-girdle on these special occasions, if there’s even a hope in hell he can get into his kit. Luckily, the kilt is just a long piece of material and can be adjusted accordingly.
The women adorn themselves in long skirts, white blouses, and beanies—I’m not kidding. Nan wears her family’s tartan, which is the McTavish plaid. It’s predominately light blue, dark blue, and red. I wear the Masterton plaid and my mom has on a combination of both. The whole scene basically looks like Scotland threw up on us.
When we have guests, which is luckily not a frequent occurrence, we have extra plaids for them to wear over the clothes they arrive in. I’ve warned Ethan of this, and he assures me he’ll play along without complaint.
I jump out of bed, grab my robe, and hurry down the stairs, only to run into Ethan. He takes my arms and gives me a sweet kiss, then offers, “I’m thankful for you.”
New York Ethan is making an appearance. I kiss him back, “I’m sorry my family is so nuts.”
He waves his hand dismissively. “Don’t be. Like you said, I’m marrying you, not them.” Then he pats my butt and winks. Ooooh, is it possible he might be relaxing his rule of no hanky-panky in my parents’ house? I look forward to finding out. But there’s no time now.
When I get to the kitchen, preparations are in full swing. My mom tends to the Cullen skink, which is a thick haddock soup. Nan works on the tatties, herring, and black pudding. My job is the clootie dumpling— essentially, flour, bread crumbs, dried fruit, suet, sugar, spices and milk, all wrapped up and baked in a clootie, or cloth. We work harmoniously as we have been preparing this meal together for close to three decades.
My dad is in the garage practicing his bagpipes, which sounds more like a wild goose massacre than actual music. My brother is probably getting high watching football. All in all, it’s like every Thanksgiving that has come before.
Ethan follows me in and offers to help. Nan has yet to have any lengthy interaction with my intended, a happenstance which thrills me beyond words, but at that moment she turns to him and mutters, “Filthy Sassenach.”
My intended raises his eyebrows in question, so I push him off to the side. I explain, “Nan’s Sassenach is dirty. She’s been trying to clean it all morning.” I’m hoping he doesn’t know that Sassenach is a Scottish word for English person, which of course Ethan is, by blood anyway. I suggest, “Why don’t you go entertain your parents while we carry on in pursuit of our dinner.”
Once he leaves the room, I turn to Nan and demand, “What was that all about?”
“What?” she asks with big-eyed innocence.
“Why did you just call Ethan a filthy Sassenach?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “I don’t know, dear. You know how it is with these strokes. Sometimes words just come out of my mouth and I can’t stop them.”
What she says is true, but I think, and have thought for some time, that my grandmother uses her strokes as an excuse to blurt out whatever she wants to. Yet, being that she has no reason to dislike Ethan, maybe it wasn’t really intended. I suggest she go downstairs and light up a fatty to take the edge off.
Ethan’s already left the room in search of sanctuary, so when Nan does the same, I ask my mom, “What do you think of Ethan?”
She hems and haws, “Oh, my, well . . . he’s nice, isn’t he?”
Obviously, I think he’s nice. I’ve agreed to be his wife. This isn’t quite the reaction I expected from my mother, though.
“Yes, he’s nice.” I push, “But what do you think of him?”
Here’s something you should know about Mags, and something I should have thought about before asking this question: my mother doesn’t lie. She doesn’t believe in it. She feels that if you request her opinion, it’s her true feelings you’re after. So, don’t ever ask her if your butt looks fat in a pair of pants when there’s even the slightest chance the answer is yes.
Luckily, the phone rings and I’m spared the answer to my question.
Enya Isn’t Scottish
The day passes in a whirlwind of activity. Aside from helping get the meal ready, setting the table, and tidying the house, I take extra pains with my appearance. I like to think I’m doing it out of respect for the holiday, but the ugly truth is I’m not. I want to show Sam what he’s missed by rubbing my gorgeousness in his face, as suggestive as that sounds.
Natalie joins me in the dining room as I put the last touches on the table. She visibly startles when she takes in the riot of clashing colors. She’s holding a Masterton plaid and looks confused. “Your mother was kind enough to give this to me, but I don’t know what to do with it.”
Ethan’s mom is wearing a beautiful, light-pink silk dress, which will look atrocious with the plaid, but that’s not the point. The point is, our Thanksgiving table is one of solidarity and everyone who sits at it must be wearing the family colors. “Here, let me help you,” I offer.
I fold the fabric lengthwise in half and then drape it across her torso like a sash. She looks like a contestant in the Miss Scotland Pageant. Once that’s complete, I fasten both sides together at her hip with a kilt pin. Finally, I splay the fabric open on her shoulder so that it dips half-way down her arm.
She smiles delightedly. “Thank you, dear. Is this how Jason and Ethan should wear theirs, as well?”
I shake my head. “No. They wear theirs like kilts. They can either do that over their pants or without pants. It’s their call.”
Natalie looks alarmed. “Oh, my. I’m not sure they’ll know how to accomplish that on their own.”
I respond, “Don’t worry. I’ll send my dad up to help them.”
An hour later, we’re all assembled in the living room waiting on Sam and his parents. Both Ethan and his dad have opted to keep their dress slacks on under their plaid. If I’m brutally honest, they look ridiculous. Kilts aren’t for everyone, but the only way to wear them properly is to do so fearlessly. You’ve got to show your knees and carry yourself like a warrior going into battle.
Ethan leans into me and whispers, “This skirt keeps bunching up. I think I have static cling.”
“It’s not a skirt, it’s a kilt,” I reply. “And that’s what happens when the wool rubs up against another fabric.” I instruct, “You need to take your pants off.”
He looks appalled, like I’ve just, well, asked him to take his pants off.
When the doorbell rings, my parents and I jump up to answer it.
I truly am happy to see Sam’s mom and dad. Liza and Ned Hawking have been in my life since I was a little girl. They’ve been devoted friends to my parents and a great supporter of Nan’s—especially when she first started going around town offending everyone in her path. They even hired Travis, during his clown phase, to perform at their annual Fourth of July barbecue, which was a weird entertainment fit to say the least.
When Sam and I started dating, they welcomed me into their family like the daughter they’d never had. Liza taught me how to bake pumpernickel bread, and Ned showed me how to ride a motorcycle. They were once threads woven deeply into the fabric of my life.
I’ve had no contact with them since I left for school, even though they bought me a gift for my college graduation and still send me a Christmas card every year. I’ve never encouraged contact, but for some reason they haven’t been able to shut the door on me. So, when they walk through ours, I hug them like the long-lost friends they are.
