Lily King - Father of the Rain

Catherine puts the knife down hard on the counter but then gives up a small smile.

Even though there is only one less person than we normally have for Thanksgiving, it feels like a sparse gathering. My mother always said a prayer, but Catherine just starts cutting into her meat.

“Ahem.” My father, from the other end of the table, looks at her in pretend sternness. “Aren’t we forgetting something?”

“Oh, yes.” She looks up at the ceiling. “Thanks for nothing, Lord. Next time you cook the goddamn turkey.”

My father loves it. “You’s a funny one,” he says.

She kisses the air in his direction noisily.

He puts out two hands and squeezes, like he’s squeezing her boobs.

Garvey raises one eyebrow at me from across the table, and I have to look down in my lap to keep from laughing.

“So.” My father turns to Garvey. “Classes good?”

“Yup.”

“What’re you taking?” It seems less out of curiosity than to get Garvey to prove he’s actually going to college.

“Calculus, Middle English, Psych, Anatomy.”

“Anatomy? You find out where your dick is yet?”

“Jesus, Dad. You’ve got little kids here.” He turns to Elyse who is finger painting with gravy on the table. “How old are you?”

Without stopping to look up, she says, “None of your beeswax.”

“I’m just asking if you’ve found out where your dick is.”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Garvey says, and then he seems to make a decision. He turns to Catherine. “What was Nassau like?”

She doesn’t look at him either. “Hot.”

“I have some friends who lived there for a couple years. They said there’s a grotto out on the north side of the island with all these sea lions and then there’s this funky bar where—”

She waves those things away. “We didn’t see any of that stuff. We just stayed at the resort.”

“They must have had some good-looking tennis courts down there.”

Catherine nods.

Garvey pours himself another glass of wine. He’s the only one drinking it. “What do you wear when you play tennis?” he asks her. “I mean, are women switching over to shorts or do they still have to wear skirts?”

“I like wearing skirts.”

“You have more freedom of movement, don’t you? Maybe that’s why Billy Jean King beat Bobby Riggs.”

“That was a setup,” Catherine says.

“You think it was rigged?”

“No pun intended,” I say. No one hears me.

“Of course it was rigged,” my father says. “He could have beaten her with his left toe if he’d wanted to.”

“So why didn’t he?’

“Because he got a hell of a lot more money for losing.”

“He let himself be a laughingstock for a couple of grand?”

“More than that.”

“Where are you getting your information, Dad, from Don Finch?”

My father laughs in spite of himself. Everyone at the table does. Even Elyse knows Don Finch is the worst player at the club and the most hilarious to watch. There’s a story that he once played a whole set without making contact with the ball once.

“You know who I saw at the club the other day? Gus Barlow.”

“Gus Barlow,” Garvey says. “Shit. How is he?” Gus was a classmate of Garvey’s at Ashing Academy.

“He’s good.” I can tell my father is going somewhere with this. So can Garvey. “He’s a good kid.” My father puts down his fork and knife slowly. “You know, if you cleaned yourself up a bit we could go over there for a meal this weekend.”

Garvey shakes his head. “My buffet days at the clubhouse are definitely over.”

“Yeah? You’re done with the club. Too good for the club now, I guess.” He picks up his silverware again then points them at Garvey. “How does your mother feel about the way you look?”

“She hasn’t mentioned it.”

“Well I can tell you that when she lived in this house she would never have let you come to the Thanksgiving table looking like that. Never.”

“I guess she’s just lost her marbles.”

“I think she has. I really do.” His face is bright red.

“Well good for her,” Catherine mumbles.

Garvey smiles at her. “Said the new wife, ambiguously.”

Catherine laughs loudly.

“Garvey, I gotta show you something after dinner,” Frank says.

“What?” Patrick asks.

“Shut up,” Frank says.

“Is that jade?” my brother asks, touching the chunks of stone around Catherine’s wrist.

“Jade and mother of pearl.”

My father is glaring at her. She pulls her arm away.

Garvey and I do the dishes. There is no discussion about this. Everyone else brings their plates to the sink and walks away.

“Cinderella and Cinderello, the two stepchildren left in the scullery all alone.” He feigns hunger and weariness, limply carrying the turkey platter to the counter. “Hey, I have a movie idea.” He always has movie ideas. “Oh my God, it’s going to make us millions. Okay, it’s Thanksgiving night and this old man lives in a house all alone. His children came that afternoon with the meal but now they’ve all gone home to their families. He’s been married three or four times but all his wives have left him and he’s all alone on Thanksgiving night, all doped up on tryptophan but too depressed to sleep. And then he hears this noise outside. He goes out into his yard and there’s this enormous turkey, the size of a house, gobbling at him. But the turkey has a human face, a gruesome one, like Mrs. Perth’s face. You have her this year, right? I still have nightmares about her. And this turkey has all the man’s wives tucked under its wings. They’re all naked and they all have papers for him to sign because he screwed every single one of them out of his money.”

Dad has come in to make a drink and is standing there, listening.

“Knock it off, Garvey,” he says. “I don’t want you corrupting her. She’s an innocent little girl and she doesn’t need a slob like you filling her head with bullshit.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“I’ll tell you something. Any bullshit either of you has gotten comes from your mother. Look at you. Just look at you. I tell you, I feel sorry for you with a mother like that. She left me a goddamn note right there.” He points to the counter because the kitchen table isn’t there to point to anymore. “Right there. Wouldn’t even tell me to my face she was leaving.” I think for a moment he’s going to cry.

“She was scared you’d hit her.”

“She was right about that. I would have hit her. Cowardly bitch.”

Garvey laughs. My father joins him. My heart is racing and I scrub the scalloped sweet potato dish as hard as I can.

We leave as soon as the kitchen is clean. I mention to Dad that I’ll be back up here Saturday morning and he just shrugs, like he couldn’t care less, which is a lot better than getting yelled at.

We are late, very late, getting back to Mom’s. I can see her trying not to let it bother her, but she’s been cooking alone all day and now the dishes that she covered with tinfoil are cold and she sits down and picks up her fork without saying grace either.

“Where’s Mrs. Waverly and Cousin Morgan?” Garvey asks.

“Oh, Mom,” I remember the placecards in my dress pocket. “Look what I rescued!” I spill them onto the table. The wooden fruits clatter together.

She shakes her head at them. And then scoops them up and throws them all in the trash in the kitchen. “Sorry,” she says to me, “but they give me the willies.” And then she says to Garvey, “I thought it would be better to just have it be us this year. I’m not used to this electric oven and I didn’t know what time to invite them for because I didn’t know what time Catherine would be serving lunch up there and they never stick to a schedule anyway and I just thought it would be easier, but now I’m feeling so guilty. Who knows where they’re eating. Probably at a restaurant. And they could have kept me company while I waited for you two.” She looks sad, sadder than I’ve seen her since we moved here.