Here on Earth

“I was home.” March hangs up her coat and follows Susie into the Justices’ kitchen. “Baking that cake.”

“Well, I called and called and no one ever answered.” Susie pours them each a glass of red wine. “Do you believe how many old folks are out there?”

“Ed Milton’s not old.” March samples the sweet potato casserole cooling on the counter. “He’s cute.”

“Don’t get all excited,” Susie tells her. “It’s not serious.”

Louise Justice comes into the kitchen, catching that last bit of conversation. “That’s what Susie always says. You’d think she was a frivolous person, if you didn’t know her better.”

“Here’s a drawback,” Susie says. “His daughter hates me. If she keeps being so nasty, I’m going to be nasty right back.”

“She’s twelve,” Louise says. “In six years she’ll be off to college and you’ll see her at Christmas vacation if you’re lucky. And for now, she lives with her mother in New York. They moved to Roslyn, out on Long Island, this past summer, and Lindsay likes seventh grade a lot more than she thought she would.”

Susie and March both give Louise a look.

“I didn’t pry,” Louise swears. “Lindsay volunteered the information. Which she would with you too,” she tells Susie. “If you gave her the chance.”

Louise now sets them to work. March is to ladle corn chowder from the pot into a tureen. Susie is to remove the oyster stuffing from the cooling turkey.

“I guess Hollis decided not to show,” Susie says. “Surprise, surprise.”

“He’s opted for a frozen dinner and peace and quiet,” March says.

“At least he let you come,” Susie says.

“You wouldn’t have wanted him here, considering how you feel. Both of you.” March is looking straight at Louise.

“I told her about your theory,” Susie admits to her mother. “About Hollis and Belinda. I’m sorry.”

“I’m glad you did,” Louise says.

“You are?” Susie is surprised and rather relieved.

“I am, although I know that March will make her own choices no matter what we say. Won’t you, dear?”

“That’s right,” March agrees. “So I’d appreciate you butting out, unless you’re willing to let me take over your lives.”

“Touché,” Louise says.

Susie pours herself and March more red wine, and gets some cold Chablis from the fridge for her mother. Louise nods and takes a sip of wine. Sometimes, in the old days, the Murrays would bring Judith Dale with them when invited to the Justices’ holiday dinners. Judith would bring her special dishes: her apple brown Betty, her green beans with almonds, her onion soup with its delicious, thick crust. She worked well beside Louise in the kitchen, and Louise always told the Judge how lucky the Murrays had been to find Judith. Why, one year, before she knew anything, she sat Judith next to the Judge, and if she’d been more observant she would have noticed that neither of them spoke a word throughout that dinner, as if proximity and desire had made them mute. For all Louise knows, they may have been holding hands under the table all through dinner. She does remember how surprised and pleased she was when the Judge offered to help Judith clear the table, since he usually didn’t think to attend to household chores.

“Are you okay, Mom?” Susie asks as she slips the bowl of stuffing into the oven to keep warm.

Louise has a house full of guests and she’s standing there, doing nothing, with a glass of wine in her hand.

“Perfectly fine,” Louise says.

She goes to help March take out the soup bowls from a high cabinet. Every time March reaches for a bowl that emerald ring which used to belong to Judith shimmers, as if it were made of some mysterious liquid. Louise tells herself she’d better snap out of her reverie and stop the self-pity; a ring, after all, is not a heart, it’s not a soul or a husband beside you in bed every night. It’s a rock that’s only worth something in the first place because someone has decided to give it value.

The Judge now comes in. “There’s the turkey,” he says. His one holiday task: to carve. Louise has left out the knife he likes best and the large silver fork which belonged to her mother.

As usual, the Judge is wearing a suit and tie; he seems much too tall for the kitchen. He carves the turkey, teasing the women as they travel back and forth to the dining room, bringing out platters of food. He’s the same man who’s stood here in Louise’s kitchen every Thanksgiving, but today something is different. The Judge’s hands shake as he carves. It’s a slight tremor, so mild no one would notice, except Louise.