his mouth. He glanced at Mary with a sheepish smile and reached for another one.
“Get your greasy mitts off,” she said, slapping at his hand. “It’s about time you stopped tinkering with that old truck of yours and got cleaned up. Your folks will be here any minute.”
Wayne curled his lips into a pout. She laughed, handed him another cinnamon crisp. At times like this, she nearly forgot what it had been like before Jamie. Before Jamie, when shame ruled her life, like an unrelenting dictator in a desert of barrenness. All the medical procedures she and Wayne had undergone back then, all their attempts to find the right moment and the right way to conceive, had led to the truth that she would never feel a baby, a new life, growing inside her, and that it was her fault.
—
Mary’s descent into a state of sadness and hopelessness back then was subtle at first. She couldn’t decide what to have for breakfast. She couldn’t concentrate enough to read the newspaper. She began to wonder if she was incapable of doing anything right. Sunny days seemed cloudy and dreary. She was often irritated with Wayne, suffocated by his attempts to help. Their marriage lost its meaning for her, now that they would never realize the dream they’d shared since junior high school of creating a home filled with children.
She questioned whether she loved Wayne anymore. She’d burst into tears over nothing. Some days she found it hard to get out of bed.
She thought more and more about what a welcome relief it must have been for her mother when she committed suicide ten years ago.
One morning when she lay in bed, once more unable to face the day, Wayne brought her breakfast.
“I talked to a social worker.” He put the tray down and placed his hand on hers. “About taking in a foster child.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Just to see how it goes. Maybe later we can think about adopting. Please, Mary. We can’t go on like this.”
The love in Wayne’s eyes reached Mary’s heart and cut through her pain. “Okay, I’ll talk to a social worker,” she’d said, “but that’s all, just talk.”
In the end, she agreed to give foster parenting a try. There was no way she could have known then how that decision would change everything. The moment Jamie was placed in her arms and she saw his scrunched-up three-day-old face peeking out from the fluffy blue blanket, she fell utterly, hopelessly, in love with him. She wondered if this was what other mothers felt, if it was possible that she might be experiencing the same kind of joy, the same kind of pure love they reported feeling after giving birth. Maybe the price she had paid for this gift of life had simply been a different kind of pain than the physical pain they experienced. With Jamie’s arrival, life became a carnival of laughter and discovery and love. How wrong it seemed now to consider that it had been born in such desperation.
—
“Knock, knock!”
The cheery voice of Wayne’s mother came through the back door. Rose Williams, a petite woman with a stoop to her back and the perpetual smell of roses about her, stood on her tiptoes and hugged her son.
“And you, my dear,” she said, planting a kiss on Mary’s cheek, “are as gorgeous as ever.”
Mary smiled indulgently. Her mother-in-law had a propensity to be fast and loose with the compliments. Like the time she told the pastor’s wife her new hairstyle looked ravishing when any fool could see what a botched job it was. But she meant well, and Mary loved her.
“Where’s Dad?” Wayne asked.
“Checking his new Cadillac for scratches before he comes in,” Rose said. “You know how he is.”
A few minutes later Harold Williams roared into the kitchen and slammed a six-pack of Coke down on the counter. He patted Mary on the back and with an exaggerated sniff tipped his head toward the oven.
“Now those meat pies are something even I couldn’t make,” he said. “Course, I’ve never tried.” He chuckled.
Mary ignored him. Wayne’s father could be a challenge sometimes, but he was devoted to his family—unlike her own father, who’d moved to Florida after her mother died and dropped off the face of the earth.
“Hi, Grandpa Harold.” Jamie’s brown eyes lit up with excitement.
“Uncle Harold.” Wayne’s father tousled Jamie’s hair.
Mary gritted her teeth. No matter how many excuses Wayne made for his father and no matter how often he and his mother joked that the man had simply been born stubborn, she wasn’t going to let him off the hook on this one. Jamie was her son, and that made Harold his grandfather, and that was that, end of discussion.
“I bet Grandpa would like to dig worms with you,” she said.
“Wanna, Grandpa Harold? Please?” Jamie grabbed his grandfather’s hand and pulled him toward the door. Tommy tagged along behind, his freckled nose twitching on his goofy-looking face.
—
Half an hour later, Mary called them in to get ready for the parade. She instructed Jamie to wash the mud from his hands and then change his clothes. She laid out his new red, white, and blue T-shirt and his clean jean shorts on his bed. Harold hurriedly changed into his old World War II army uniform. Since he always marched with the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Memorial Day, he had to leave early.
“I’ll be right behind the American Legion Band,” he told Jamie before he went. “Don’t forget to wave to me.”
It was only a two-block walk to Main Street, but by the time they reached it, everyone in town was already there. Wayne lifted Jamie up on his broad football shoulders so he could see over all the heads. When the veterans came into view Jamie waved his arms so hard he nearly fell from his perch. Mary gasped and Wayne increased his grip on his son’s ankles.
“Here I am, Grandpa! Over here! Here!”
“He can’t hear you, sweetie,” Mary shouted up to him. “The band’s too loud.”
Couldn’t he at least nod to his grandson? she thought. Doesn’t he know we always watch the parade from in front of the five-and-dime store? She glanced down at her mother-in-law, sitting on a lawn chair by the curb and watching her husband with a face blank with restraint—or was it simply a lack of awareness—that was as remarkable to Mary as it was irritating. But then Rose looked up at her with a warm smile that melted her frustration.
The parade, which made up in passion for what it lacked in size, seemed to be over as soon as it started. The town cop rode by on his motorcycle and people started to fold up their lawn chairs and head toward picnic lunches with their families.
Back home, Mary, Wayne, and Rose carried the food out to the deck while Harold—still in his army uniform—regaled Jamie with war stories. Tommy showed up like he always did when it was time to eat. Jamie reached for one of the meat pies—stuffed with ground pork and beef, potatoes, rutabagas, carrots, and onions and displayed on a platter like spokes on a wheel—and smothered the crust with ketchup.
“Hey, chief, don’t you have a birthday coming soon?” Harold said with a wink.
“I’m
