and chocolate lava cake that convinced him to marry me.”
Margot made a sympathetic little noise. I’d told her about Tim when we met at the parsonage, right after she’d told me about her breakup with her old boyfriend. Every psych textbook I’ve ever read says that the best way to draw someone out is just to listen, but I don’t think that’s always true. Sometimes, when a woman shares a secret, especially one you can tell she didn’t plan on sharing, it makes her feel better if you tell her one of your secrets in exchange, as a sort of pledge of good faith. There’s probably an official phrase for this in textbooks about interpersonal communications, but I’ve always called it “trading hostages.” That’s what I did with Margot.
I wasn’t surprised that she’d shared personal information with me and so quickly. People have always told me their stuff, even before I was ordained. Maybe I’m easy to talk to. I hope so. Sometimes people just need a safe place to unload their troubles.
Don’t get me wrong, telling Margot about my broken heart, how Tim’s death left me in mourning not just for my best friend and lover but the death of all the plans we’d made for children, a home, life as we had thought it would and should be, wasn’t just for her benefit. Sometimes I need to share my stuff too. A minister has to choose her confidantes with care. However, Margot seemed trustworthy and entirely honest, guileless even. More importantly, I liked her.
It was sweet of her to invite me to Christmas dinner, especially at the last minute. But as I stood in Margot’s kitchen chopping vegetables, I felt emotional, almost teary, and not because of the onion.
Christmas is a day for celebration and hope and gratitude. I know because I just preached a whole sermon on the subject. I have every reason to feel hopeful and grateful. God gave me a church for Christmas—a lovely church in a charming Norman Rockwell village filled with kind-hearted people who take in stray pastors and invite them to Christmas dinner at the last minute. I should be happy. Instead, I am suddenly swamped by loneliness and longing. I miss my family and I miss Tim. I miss all those connections and complications that make life such a struggle and give it such meaning.
This is a nice town, but I don’t know this place, these people. I am a stranger here and it feels strange. Things will look brighter after the holidays, I suppose, when my work will begin in earnest. On the other hand, maybe they won’t. The reaction to my sermon was, unfortunately, about what I’d expected it to be. That doesn’t bode well for my future in New Bern. But one way or another, I’ll soon be too busy for introspection. What a relief. It is more blessed to give than to receive and, for me, usually much easier.
Contrary to Charlie’s prediction, Margot’s sister was late for dinner. Very late. Repeated calls to her cell phone went unanswered. Margot’s dad grew increasingly irritated as the minutes ticked past. He paced in front of the fireplace, clanking his ice in his glass, occasionally fishing out a piece and chewing on it, and grumbling.
“Margot, did you tell her that dinner would be served at two?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Well, why isn’t she here? It’s quarter to three. And here we all sit, waiting, while the turkey dries out.”
“Not at all,” Charlie assured him, though we both knew it wasn’t true. “The turkey is on schedule. Can I refill your glass, Werner? There’s plenty of eggnog.”
“I’ll do it,” Margot said, taking her father’s glass and scurrying into the kitchen.
“I’m sure she’ll be here soon,” Evelyn said. “She probably ran into traffic.”
“The roads were so icy coming down here,” Margot’s mother said, turning to Evelyn. “There were spots where we couldn’t go more than fifteen miles an hour.”
“We got here,” Werner harrumphed. “Right when we said we would.”
Margot returned from the kitchen with her father’s glass. Werner stood directly in front of the fire with one arm crossed over his chest, tossed back half his eggnog in one gulp, and started chewing on another ice cube. I’ve never known anyone who drank eggnog on the rocks, but I suspected, for Werner, the ice was more about giving him something to do than keeping his beverage cold.
“I tried Mari’s cell again,” Margot said. “No answer. Maybe we should go ahead and eat.”
The table was pretty, with a long, low line of white poinsettias wrapped in gold paper and ringed by white votive candles for the centerpiece and set with gold-rimmed china and tall crystal goblets that sparkled in the candlelight. Charlie and Evelyn had brought a bunch of white and gold Christmas crackers to the party, a gift sent by Charlie’s sisters in Ireland, and put one next to each place setting.
Charlie demonstrated how to pull on the strings to open the cracker. The resulting pop made everyone jump, and the sight of Charlie wearing a pink paper crown on his head made everyone laugh, easing the tension. For a few minutes the room was filled with sounds of popping paper and the sight of adults looking silly and pleased in their own paper crowns, showing off the cheap plastic trinkets they found inside the paper tubes.
Margot filled goblets with champagne. Charlie carried the turkey in from the kitchen and placed it on the sideboard, carving knife at the ready. Though it was his daughter’s table, Werner instinctively placed himself at the head of it. When everyone was seated, he bowed his head to bless the food, but his wife laid a hand on his arm.
“Werner, perhaps Reverend Clarkson should say the prayer?”
He looked at me, frowning. We were all members of the same denomination, but Werner Matthews seemed uncomfortable with the idea of a female minister. He’d barely talked to me all day. It didn’t bother me; I’d run into that sort of thing before and would again.
“Please, Mr. Matthews,” I said, bowing my head slightly, “you go ahead.”
After Mr. Matthews prayed, Charlie carved and served the bird while the rest of us passed bowls and platters from hand to hand, filling our plates until there wasn’t room for so much as an additional cranberry. The turkey was a little bit dry, but that didn’t seem to make any difference to anyone but Charlie, who grimaced slightly when he took his first bite. Everything else was delicious. Now that the food was on the table, Margot’s father was more relaxed, which seemed to come as a relief to Margot.
He was an interesting man, bristly, but clearly dedicated to his family and just as clearly used to being in charge of everything—his business, his wife, and his daughter. Margot was forty, a woman with a home of her own and a successful career, yet her father spoke to her and of her as though she were still a girl, a good girl and the apple of his eye, but a girl just the same. And Margot responded in kind, deferring to his opinions.
I wondered if she was aware of how her personality altered in the presence of her father. Was that the price of being her father’s favorite, a price she had decided was worth paying? Or had she and her sister, as so many siblings do, simply fallen into the roles assigned to them when they were born—good child, bad child, rebel, saint?
Being an only child does have some advantages. For me, there was no jockeying for position or need to curry favor, no fear of losing parental approval. I was always my father’s favorite, the tablet upon which he inscribed all his hopes and unfulfilled expectations. It’s something of a mixed blessing. Those tablets are heavy.
Still wearing his purple paper crown, Werner sawed a chunk of turkey breast into bite-sized pieces while talking to his daughter. “I gave your car a once-over before I came inside, honey. You need new tires. The tread is low on the back right side. It’s dangerous to drive on a tire like that, especially in this weather.”
“I know, Daddy. But I’m thinking of getting a new car, so I didn’t think it made sense to replace the tires now.”
“A new car?” Werner frowned, reached for the cranberry sauce, and heaped the last of it on his plate. Without being asked, Lillian got up from the table and carried the bowl into the kitchen, presumably to refill it. “What’s wrong with the car