The Fourth Part of Chapter 10: Thanksgiving

From there, the conversation switched to matters that are more domestic, and Alice said, “So sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry, Alice; boys will be boys,” said Hyram. Margaret, on the other hand, glowered at Sean, and he pointedly avoided her withering gaze; despite being only two, he had already learned to avoid his grandmother’s wrath.

“I hope this phase in his development will be over soon,” she said. “Watching him in August was no picnic, let me tell you; he would jump out of bed at six or some ungodly hour, and run around the house without any clothes on. He would only let me catch him after he had had his fun, and then he would fight me in trying to get his clothes on, saying he wanted mommy. He played with his Brussels sprouts; he stuck his carrots up his nose, and liked to play catch with me with the peas. There was that one time when he ran down the road after I had tried to give him a bath. He was screaming, “Save me from the monster!” at the top of his lungs, and this was, unhappily, after I had taken his clothes off. I’m glad it’s you taking care of him and not me, Jacob.”

Alice smiled a little, while Sean was pulling faces at nobody in particular. Margaret had repeated the story about him running away from his bath many times in Jacob’s presence, and this was easy to do given that they lived in Mississauga, not at all far from Willowdale. This repetition was an implicit criticism of the younger Varrettes’ parenting style, without her saying straight out that she thought Alice and Jacob were raising her grandchild poorly.

Margaret, in an attempt to change the subject, said, “it’s very interesting how some people’s predictions about certain individuals can be taken to heart; Time Magazine detailed the President’s life, and how all along people were predicting he would be great, and look where he is now. I remember a similar thing happening to Bruce Meach; it was in 2001 that Mark Gainly tapped him as a man to watch, and he said Meach would be Prime Minister one day. You know, that’s Mark Gainly, who’s a pollster now, and quite a good one, I might add. Of course, Andrea Colm was none too pleased about that: she pointedly said that only one person could be Prime Minister of the country at any one time, and that was that,”

“Mom, I find it amazing that you remember who wrote that article in the Globe and Mail; that was nine years ago!”

“Well, Clarie, I have a good memory for that sort of thing.”

James gave Clarissa a look that said, “What do you want to do tonight?” in a suggestive manner. They would be staying over in the room Clarissa slept in as a kid, and he wanted to get down to business; the simple thought of it made him lusty. Margaret paid no attention, fortunately; she was eating her scalloped potatoes sautéed in milk, which were particularly delicious.

Clarissa asked Mary, “How’s teaching?”

“I have three classes, one of which is quiet and seems to be made up of all the good kids, though the other two are quite boisterous; all it takes is a couple of rabble-rousers, and then the whole class becomes…well, exciting, shall we say,”

It was at this point that James had zoned out completely; perhaps it was the turkey, but he found that he was tuning out. Food had a way of doing that, and at this point, the volume dropped down, and the only thing audible was the clinking of metal cutlery against the plates. James reached for the salt and sprinkled it liberally on the remaining turkey and scalloped potatoes, and made eye contact with nobody until the plate was empty.

After dinner, James, Clarissa, Alice and Jacob were resting in the downstairs living room, working off the meal. Sean on the other hand had different ideas.

“Daddy, read me a story.” He commanded, waving Hop on Pop in front of Jacob’s face.

“You didn’t teach him please?”

“Uncle James is right, Sean. Say 'please'.”

Sean pouted.

“Sean, we want you to be good.”

“Peese,”

“Close enough, I guess.”

Sean climbed into his father’s lap, and handed him the story; they finished the book in ten minutes, longer than usual because he had kept pointing to the various characters and said things like “what’s dat?” or “why is dat guy’s nose so funny?” For him, bed-time reading was a competitive sport; whoever fell asleep first was the loser in his eyes, and by this measure, Sean was about to beat his father.

Having won over his father, he advanced on his mother.

“Mommy,”

“All right Sean, but promise me you’ll fall asleep,” so you won’t bother me anymore, she thought. It was lucky for her that she had brought along more Seuss than simply Hop on Pop, and she reached into the bag and pulled out The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.

“I promise, mommy. Why I no had to say peese?”

“Uh...”

“Peese?”

James smiled; he’s finally learning his manners, he thought. This would be much easier than getting him to fall asleep after Hop on Pop; The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins was a much longer story.

“Why does the king look so much like the one from the oobweck?”

“It’s the same king,” said Alice. She started the story, and sure enough, Sean eventually fell asleep; at that moment, Alice was reading aloud. “The executioner leaned across the chopping block and flipped off Bartholomew’s hat,” looked down, and when she saw that Sean was asleep, stopped reading.

“Now we’re assured of a quiet drive home,” she said.


Clarissa and James left Margaret’s house on Sunday morning, satisfied overall with seeing Clarissa’s family. Margaret, on the other hand, was not happy; James had seemed able to find fault with various things: her over-fussiness, the dryness of her turkey, and the unimaginative, bland salad they had that dinner, to say nothing of what she had talked about. What was there wrong with politics as a dinner table discussion?

James had not seen what Margaret’s problem was: he wasn't alone in dishing out gratuitous criticism; she dwelled rather significantly on his pudgy midriff, and he thought she was overly fastidious. Hyram had a waist similar to this, but he was in his sixties, as opposed to James’s relatively youthful thirty-three. For the way back home, they walked to the subway station and rode it to Union station, which cheered James up; he was no longer grumpy about having been criticised for his waistline, and anyways, what was wrong with a few extra pounds? At Union Station, they had only to wait fifteen minutes before the train that they boarded left. James pulled out a novel he had been reading (Robertson Davies’ Leaven of Malice), and passed the rest of the journey with it.

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