Comfort and Joy (8 page)

"How longare youhome for, Courtenay?"Ford asked.
"New Year's Eve. Classes don't start for another week, but I'mmovingto a new apartment."
"I don't particularly like the idea of your living alone," Mother said.
"Please, Mother, let's talk about this after Christmas, all right? Ford's home, and I don't want to argue."
"As long as you remember that we do have to talk about it." Mother's polite voice concealed a well-knownblade.
Father eyed himfromabove the glass. "I thought Lisa Stillwell looked just lovelytonight."
"She has the sweetest little figure,"Mother agreed.
"She certainly thinks the world of you, Ford," Father added, weightingeachword. "She was quite excited whenshe found out youwould be at the party."
Suddenly Ford remembered the careful telephone interrogations conducted byhis mother, eachpointedlyreminding himofthe vitalneed to arrive ontime. Asmallknot ofanger rose inhis throat.
Courtenaysaid, "Lisa certainlydoes have bigfront teeth."
"Courtenay!"
"I didn't notice anythingabout her teeth,"Father said.
"Youdidn't? They're as bigas a beaver's."
"Courtenay, that certainly isn't a very kind way to talk about the poor girl. Do you remember how terrible you used to feel whenthe boys made funofyoufor beingtall?"
"Yes, mother, I certainly do. But now I'm six feet tall and drop-dead gorgeous, and Lisa Stillwell's teethare stilltoo big."
Father laughed in spite of himself, setting down the glass on the sideboard. Mother said, "Keith, don't encourage her."
"I'll be perfectly happy to be quiet, Mother," Courtenay said,
"I'll be perfectly happy to be quiet, Mother," Courtenay said, drumming fingertips on Ford's knee, "if we can just stop talking about that dwarf."
Ford said, "She's a perfectly nice girl. I just don't want to marryher."
The fire hissed. The top of the brandy decanter chimed. Otherwise the whole house fell silent. Father sipped, swirled the glass, looked at it. "What brought that on?"
"I was tryingto be funny."
Mother said, mildly, "I don't see the humor."
Father crossed his arms and faced Ford with his legs spread slightly. "Tellme, son, who do youwant to marry?"
"Nobody,"Ford said. "Right at this moment."
"Well," Mother said brightly, "I'd like a Christmas cookie. Would anyone else care for one?" She glided from the room before anyone could answer, calling, "Courtenay, come help me, please."
When Courtenay refused to move, Father said sternly, "Courtenay, go and help your Mother withthe cookies."
"Mother doesn't need any help with a plate of cookies, Dad, and I'm not going to leave here just so you and Ford can go at it."
"Ford and I are not going at it."Father spat the phrase, which he considered to be inelegant. "Ford and I are simply talking and that's all. Now be a good houseguest, young lady, which you certainlyare bynow, and help your mother."
"Go ahead,"Ford said, pattingher head. "I'mfine."
In the uncertain world ofgesture, one never knew what would anger Father most. Tonight, that touch on Courtenay's head was it. "That's right, Courtenay," he snapped. "You have your brother's permissionto leave."
She stalked out silently. Father faced the curling flames, took a deep breath and waited till his flush had faded. "Now, Ford, your mother and I had the best intentions in the world when we your mother and I had the best intentions in the world when we invited Lisa to the party. I don't want to hear any more unkindness about that. But let me say this. If she won't do, look for somebody who will. You're too old to be single. When I was your age, I had two children, I had settled down, I was living my life. Even in the middle of a residency, I was living my life. That's all I want for you. That's all your mother and I are trying to achieve."
"Maybe what I need to do is stop coming home." Ford set downthe snifter beside the chair.
"Don't make childishthreats."
Whenhe stood, he towered over his father, and the realization came to himthat Father had more to fear, right now, thanhe did. He spoke as calmly as he could. "This is no threat, Dad, and I'm not a child. I don't need this. No, listen for a minute." Ford took a deep breath. "Now, you and mother need to face facts. I might not ever get married. I might marry somebody you don't like. One wayor the other, it's goingto be me who picks and me who decides." He lifted his overcoat from the couch. "I'm going to bed. I'llsee youinthe morning. TellMother I said good night."
Retrieving his overnight bag fromCourtenay's car, he lingered in the small garden behind the house, standing beneath the broad mimosa. At this hour of Christmas Eve, the city lay in silence, occasionallyinterrupted bya whisper oftraffic. He walked to the wooden fence that separated the yard from the service lane. Wishingfor his ownbed, his own house, he studied the few stars bright enough to pierce the haze of streetlight. Wind had begun to shift, and he smelled the first dingy scent of the paper plant blowinginto the city.
He could find no place for himself here and now, in the backyard of this house in which he had spent most of his childhood, or inthe lives ofhis parents.
He passed a nearlysleepless night inthe roomofhis boyhood, long since transformed by his mother into another showplace for antiques. His speech to his father replayed itself in his head through most of the night. Toward morning he dreamed he had brought McKenzie home with him for Christmas, a long, brought McKenzie home with him for Christmas, a long, formless dream that he failed to remember on waking. But the renewed image of the young man left him aching and full of dread.
Christmas Day passed peacefully, despite the tension that remained from the night before. Before breakfast, Mother approached him in the sun room and told him that both she and his father had agreed to let the subject drop for this trip, for the sake ofthe holidays. "But Ford,"she said, "it's reallytime we had a long talk about this whole subject. This is twice you've told your father youdon't want to get married. And while youmaybe an adult now and this may be your decision, it's certainly something that involves your family. We all know how busy you are and how difficult it is for you to travel, so your father and I would like to come to Atlanta to talk to youabout this."
"I think that's a better idea than trying to deal with it on Christmas."Ford felt suddenlyexhausted.
"Good. Now you think about when you want us to come and let us know. But I'mperfectlyserious about this."
"I'mtakingyouseriously, Mother."
"I thought this was what you and that therapist were supposed to be workingon,"witha slight lift ofher upper lip.
Ford contained a flash of anger. "I thought we were going to save the whole subject for another time. Allright?"
The social guise, which he had seen her assume in many other situations, kicked in automatically. "You're right. Now, I've got to get Christmas breakfast. You know, I actually do feel like cookingthis morning."
Father awaited them in the kitchen, leafing through the thin Christmas morning edition of the
News-Press.
Already showered and shaved, he had dressed in the battered green cardigan with red buttons that Mother called his Yuletide sweater. He folded the paper and lay his reading glasses atop it. Mother said, "Ford agrees we have a wonderful plan for settling this whole issue, Keith. I think everything's goingto work out just fine."
fine."
"That's good to hear." Father wore the placid expression reserved for cocktail parties and difficult legal negotiations. "I'm glad no one wants to spoil Christmas with the kind of talk we had last night."
Ford put out his hand and Father shook it firmly. "No one wants to spoil anything. I'm just happy to be home for the holidays."
"You can't expect this kind of easy schedule every year. I remember a couple of Christmases I had to miss, when you and your sister were young."
Christmas breakfast proceeded, managed with aplomb by Mother in spite of the fact that she rarely used the kitchen. Courtenay stumbled into the kitchen for coffee and found Ford and her father sharingstories about Grady. Ford told the storyof the bus accident and the ensuingheadaches. "The place is stuffed to the gills now," Ford said. "The administrators talk about renovating, but nobodybelieves they'llever get it done."
"I was there the first day we rolled a patient into the new building, out ofthe old White Hospital. I was a student, I believe. I'llnever forget it."
Following breakfast, the family proceeded with the opening of gifts. Ford helped set up new woodworking tools in Father's shop, an immaculate room in the basement. At the center of the room stood Father's current project, a large chest with an elaborately carved lid, partially completed. Cedar smell permeated the room. Father indicated the chest. "For your sister. Your mother wants to call it a hope chest, but I told her I don't think moderngirls have hope chests anymore."
"It's lovely. You're spendinga lot oftime onit."
Father chuckled. "Time I don't have, you mean. You're beginning to see what it's like, aren't you? Trying to take care of sick people and have a life too."
Ford ran his palms lightly over the surface, from the smoothed, finished middle to the roughedges. Dad continued, "It all gets easier after a while. Don't worry. Just listen to your mother and me. We got throughit."
Upstairs, Mother and Courtenay were putting together a modest Christmas dinner intended to feed the immediate family plus Father's uncle Paul, one ofthe elders ofthe McKinney clan. Later in the day, the whole clan would assemble on the Isle of Hope in the home of the ranking elder himself, Father's uncle Reuben. The visit to Uncle Reuben had been customary since as far back as Ford could remember.
Once the holiday settled into its usual shape, a spirit of peace did finallyovertake eachofthem. The childrenremembered what it had been like to depend on these adults, to be protected by them, to be within their power. They remembered how it had felt to be small in this house, to wake up on other Christmas mornings, when the promise of gifts had meant sleeplessness and anticipation. The parents remembered their own benevolence, which had seemed so automatic when the children needed everything, which was sometimes absent now that the children had grown.
Ford drew his usual assignment, fetching Uncle Paul. The drive to the large house on East Oglethorpe gave hima moment of solitude in which to breathe. Uncle Paul waited in the front parlor, clutching his ivory-handled cane and his favorite lap rug. Since he rode everywhere in a wheelchair, the cane served a purelyornamentalfunction, but he refused to part withit.
As Ford started the car, easing the vehicle onto East Oglethorpe, Uncle Paulasked, "Is this a new car?"
"No, it's not." Ford shook his head no. Uncle Paul looked at himskeptically. He turned to face out the front window, hunched forward. According to Father, Uncle Paul once stood nearly six feet tall himself—short, for a McKinney—but due to curvature of the spine and general decay he could barely see above the dashboard now.
Uncle Paul was allowed the head of the table, where he confined himselfto peering between water glasses and drinking a good deal of wine. When he decided to speak, he reared back good deal of wine. When he decided to speak, he reared back in his chair, bringing his head above the level of the glassware, and sighed deeply. Conversations with Uncle Paul were generally brief, as today, when the maid poured his second glass of wine and Uncle Paul lifted it fromthe table, fixing Father with a stare. "Yougot a new car."
"No." Father found it unseemly to raise his voice in order to be heard, so he sat next to Uncle Paul and spoke close to Uncle Paul's ear. "You know I would never sell that car. Too many good miles onit."
Uncle Paul had sold Father the vintage Mercedes a decade ago, but latelyhad become convinced that Father had traded it in on a new model. No one knew why, exactly. Uncle Paul announced, "It's not the same color."Settingthe wineglass onthe table, he lowered himself below the rims of the glasses once again, indicatingthe conversationhad ended.
Father asked Ford, "Did you remember we called you Ford Jr. whenyour grandfather was stillalive?"
That's right," Uncle Paul said, surprising everyone, since Father had been speaking in a normal conversational tone. "Our mama was a Ford, so my papa named his oldest son Keith Ford, after the both of them, and that's where your name came from."
"I didn't know that,"Courtenaywinked at her brother.
Explained Father, "Your great-grandmother didn't come from the right kind of family, quite, so the McKinneys never really accepted her. That was what my father used to say. But he adored her. Her father came south during Reconstruction, and that was the kiss of death here. Savannah in those days was a closed circle."
"Do youthink it's better now?"Ford asked.
"Depends onwhat youmeanbybetter, I guess,"Father said.
The talk about family history echoed through Ford, underscored by the parlor's infamous arrangements of family pictures, some dating back as far as the birth of the photograph. Courtenay referred to the room as Mom and Dad's museum, Courtenay referred to the room as Mom and Dad's museum, and today Ford wandered from display to display, studying the evidence of his forebears, mulling the poses of the couples, the taut arms ofthe husbands embracing the stiffwaists ofthe wives. Faces presented the bland, impersonal expression with which well-bred people greet portrait photography. Every picture possessed its own history. Ford remembered only scattered names among the older photographs but recognized dozens of his modern relatives. Sipping brandy, he brooded over each expression. Mother joined him, circling his waist with her arm. "Are you having a good Christmas? Are you glad you came home?"
He returned the embrace, "It's nice to do nothing but eat and drink for a change."
Lifting one of the heavy silver frames, she tested the glass for dust and said, "Esther hates all this. Nothing but dustcatchers, she says. But this is my favorite part of the house. I do just what you're doing, I wander around and look at all the faces. Do you have anyofthe familypictures at your house? I can't remember."
"No," Ford said, "just you and Dad and Courtenay. And Grandma."
"Well, we ought to give you some of ours, I guess. It's time I started dividingthese up betweenyouand Courtenay."
"It's a little too soon for that. Whenever I need to revisit history, I know where to come."
"For once, I wish we could stay here for Christmas night. I wishwe could allbe together, the waywe are right now."
"Is this mymother, tryingto get out ofvisitingUncle Reuben?"