Before we came here yesterday, I never would have imagined that Jamie would be interested in any of us. But he knows Meredith’s symptoms in and out. “Yeah. That’s how it is.” I blow a big bubble with my gum, and then it pops. “What does it mean? What do you think is happening?” I’m not really sure I want to hear his theory.
“I don’t know what’s happening, Avery. I’m not saying anything.”
I frown. “But you are saying something. You’re talking about how weird it all is. Why?”
He stands and brushes off the back of his pants. “I just think it’s good to ask questions. Especially when things just don’t add up.” He walks down off the mound and back through the cemetery, and I stand and follow him. “But listen,” he says over his shoulder, “this conversation never happened.”
My father arrives at the house just before the thermometer pops on the turkey. Caroline and I lay out the china on the table. She drops cubes of ice into the water goblets, and I follow her with a crystal water pitcher. Aunt Sandy sets the food on the buffet. “It’s ready,” she says. “Everybody come sit down.”
The family files into the dining room. I sit beside Caroline, across the table from Jamie. My mother sits at the far end of the table with Meredith on her lap.
Aunt Alice looks down at Grandma Peg, who sits at the head of the table opposite my mother. “Mom,” she says, “do you want to say grace?”
Grandma smiles. “Of course.” She bows her head, and everyone else does the same. “Kind Heavenly Father,” she begins, “we thank You for the joining of this family. We thank You for all of the blessings that You’ve seen fit to give us. We thank You for our health, and for watching over little Meredith time and again. Thank You for giving her such a caring, devoted mother to look after her.” I look up at Jamie; he’s focused on his plate, his jaw tense. “We thank You, Lord, for this bountiful meal, and we pray that You will forgive us where we fail. We ask this in Your precious name. Amen.”
“Amen,” mutter the others around the table.
“Let’s eat!” says Uncle Ray. He stands and slices into the turkey.
We eat in silence, mostly, aside from the occasional murmurs of praise: “The turkey is so juicy!” “Delicious green bean casserole, Sandy!” And then midway through the meal it happens—Meredith vomits all over Mom’s plate, the tablecloth, her own lap and Mom’s. Dad jumps up and takes the baby, running down the hall to the bathroom. Mom stands up and raises her hands, looking down at the mess that covers the front of her dress. She sobs.
I feel my own stomach turn as the smell of vomit fills the room, so I push back my chair and hurry to the kitchen. I sit at the table and watch as my aunts and grandmother try to salvage the holiday dinner. Grandma Peg carries dishes to the buffet while Aunt Alice collects rags and cleaning supplies and begins to scrub at the chair and the floor. Aunt Sandy stands nearby, one hand on her head and a look of disgust on her face. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, occasionally pointing to a spot that Alice has missed.
The men at the table, Uncle Ray and Uncle Barry, don’t talk. They just sit, forks in hand, unsure how to proceed. I can’t see Jamie from my spot in the kitchen but I hear him when he says, “How convenient this is. What timing.”
Grandma turns away from the buffet and looks at him blankly. “What does that mean?”
“Of course she would get sick at dinner. All over our dinner. While everyone’s watching.”
“She’s just a child!” says Aunt Sandy from the safety of her corner.
“Oh, I know. She’s a baby. I don’t blame her for this.” The way he says it, with the emphasis on the word “her,” I sense the ugliness that’s about to follow. Uglier than vomit on a white tablecloth.
Aunt Alice is the one who looks up from where she kneels and says to her son, “Who do you blame, Jamie?”
“I didn’t say that I blamed anyone.” I still can’t see him, but everyone else is glowering in his direction. “I just think it’s interesting, the timing of this little episode. Right in the middle of the Thanksgiving feast. Don’t you agree?”
Grandma folds her arms in front of her chest. “No, I don’t. I don’t see anything interesting about it. I see a sick baby and two worried parents. And that’s all I see.”
I imagine him shrugging. “Okay. Maybe it was all a coincidence. What do I know?”
“Not a thing,” says his mother. “Not a damn thing. But you can take your attitude on out of here. That’s what I know.”
I hear his chair scoot back and then he walks through the kitchen toward the back door, raising his eyebrows at me as he passes.
The women look at each other and shake their heads. Aunt Sandy says, “What’s he trying to say?”
“It’s ridiculous,” says Grandma Peg. “He’s not saying anything that makes a bit of sense. Let’s get this mess cleaned up and get on with dinner.”
After they clean up that end of the table and replace the dishes that weren’t tainted by puke, Grandma calls me back in. I take my seat and look down at my plate, but the air still smells like disinfectant, and the mixture of mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and green beans nauseates me now. I push it around with my fork for a minute and then excuse myself.
I grab my coat from the hook by the door and go outside. I find Jamie on the front porch. He’s looking out at the fields across the road. I sit down on the step above him. “So it happens again, huh?” he says without taking his eyes from the fields.
“Yup.” For me this is nothing new, but it’s the first time we’ve been around the whole family when it happened.
“Is your dad usually around to help?”
I shake my head. “No. My mom’s usually alone with the baby—with Meredith—when she gets sick. My dad usually meets her at the hospital.”
I hear a car coming down the driveway toward the road. It’s my dad. He skids to a stop near the porch and gets out, walking quickly past me and through the front door. He comes back out a minute later with Meredith in his arms and my mother on his heels. She stops on her way down the stairs and says to me, “She had another seizure while we were in the bathroom, Avery. We’re taking her to the hospital. You stay here with Aunt Alice and Uncle Ray. Daddy’ll come back for you.” Mom climbs into the car while Dad buckles Meredith into her carseat in the back, then he slides in behind the steering wheel, spinning gravel as he drives off and turns north toward the city, toward the hospital.
“Want to go for another drive?” I ask Jamie, but he shakes his head.
“Not now. I think I’m going to catch a nap.” He pats his belly. “Too much turkey.” He pulls himself up and goes back into the house.
I cross the front yard and run across Bluff Road to the edge of the empty field. I look north and see them there, far down the road already, their red taillights blurring as they near the horizon. They round a bend and move out of my sight. I look at the house across the road, dwarfed by the huge limestone bluff that rises behind it. I imagine my grandma and aunts and uncles inside, all sitting at the table as if nothing had happened. I turn away from them, away from the house, and look toward the river. I walk into the field that stretches out before me, into this field that has been and will one day again be covered with water.