Chapter 20: One Year Later
Thanksgiving morning smelled the way it always had at St. Jude's: turkey and coffee and gravy thick enough to stand a spoon in.
Silas Crane parked the old Buick two blocks away because the St. Jude's lot was already full of minivans and borrowed folding chairs. Tommy unfolded himself from the passenger seat, thirteen now and all elbows and knees, his apron already tied around his waist.
"You need a new car," Tommy said.
"This car has character," Silas said.
"Character is what old people call rust."
"Watch your mouth, or you're carving."
Inside, the kitchen was a beautiful riot of steam and noise. Thelma Wright spotted them over a tray of rolls and clapped flour off her hands.
"There's my boys," she said. "Si, apron. The new volunteers get the clean ones. You get the one with your name stitched in crooked."
"Fame has a price," Silas said, tying it on.
A man in a blazer raised his phone. "Mr. Crane, one quick photo?"
"No," Silas said.
Thelma stepped neatly between them. "He's off duty for photographs, honey. He takes pie orders."
The man lowered his phone, laughing, and Thelma turned to a nervous college girl behind the counter. "That's Silas Crane. Yes, that one. He hid behind 'Si' for ten years and pretended he was only here for the pie."
"I was only here for the pie," Silas said.
"He donates the pie," Thelma said. "Every year. Don't let him lie to you."
Tommy nudged Silas with an elbow. "You're famous, Grandpa. Sign the turkey."
"I'm signing nothing."
They fell into their stations like a crew that had done it a hundred times: Silas at the carving board, Tommy on the gravy boat, refilling and handing and cracking wise at anybody who stood still long enough.
"You want extra, miss?" Tommy asked a gray-haired woman. "My grandpa waters his down when I'm not looking."
"I do no such thing."
"He does. It's a rich-people disease. Being frugal."
The woman laughed and held out her plate. Casey Tran waved at them from the dessert table, both hands full of pecan pie, and Tommy waved his ladle back.
"She still checks on you?" Silas asked.
"Every month," Tommy said. "She says I'm her favorite success story. I told her that's a low bar."
Thelma leaned in with the morning paper folded under her arm. "Did you see? Preston Vane. Seven years."
Silas carved steady. "Justice is slow, but she gets there."
"She took the scenic route," Tommy said.
"She did."
A lull came, the line thinning, and Silas's hand found the brass compass in his jacket pocket. He carried it every day now, and Tommy noticed.
"You brought it," Tommy said.
"I bring it every day."
"I told Frank I'd take care of it. Then I gave it to you."
"So now I take care of it," Silas said. "That's how family works, boy. Things get handed down."
Tommy grinned and patted his other pocket. "Spare shoelace. In case."
"In case what?"
"In case."
Around Tommy's neck, on a braided leather cord, the two rings rode together: Maggie's gold band, and the one Abramowitz had made him at Christmas, engraved inside with T.R. and the same crane. The old shoestring had been retired to spare duty. Silas had never said how much that pleased him. Some things a man kept in his chest.
"Grandpa," Tommy said quietly. "Door."
Silas followed his grandson's eyes.
A boy stood in the doorway, maybe ten, in a jacket three sizes too big. His hands were empty. Not in his pockets, not holding anything, hanging at his sides like he'd forgotten what hands were for. All elbows and angles. Scared, and working hard not to show it.
Tommy went still in a way Silas had seen only a few times.
"I know that look," Tommy said.
"What look?"
"Me. A year ago."
Thelma started toward the door, all warmth and welcome, and Tommy touched her arm. "Let me," he said. She nodded and stepped back.
Tommy wiped his hands on his apron and crossed the room slow, the way you'd approach a stray dog, then crouched to eye level.
"Hey," Tommy said. "You hungry, or do you just enjoy standing in doorways?"
The boy stared.
"Fair," Tommy said. "Doorways are underrated. I'm Tommy. What's your name?"
"Marcus," the boy said, barely loud enough to hear.
"Marcus. Good name. You ever eat here before?"
A shake of the head.
"First time's the best time, then. Pie's still warm." Tommy pulled the spare shoelace from his pocket, white and new. "Here. Give me your wrist."
Marcus hesitated, then held it out. Tommy tied the lace around it in a loose knot, quick and neat.
"What's it for?" Marcus whispered.
"So you've got something to hold onto," Tommy said. "Worked for me."
He stood and nodded toward the dining room, where the youth wing door stood open with Maggie's name in brass letters over it.
"Come on," Tommy said. "The food's free. And so's the chair."
Marcus looked down at the lace on his wrist. Then he walked beside Tommy to an empty table, and sat down, and somebody set a plate in front of him, and Tommy poured him a glass of milk and didn't make a big deal out of any of it.
Silas stood at the carving board with the knife gone still in his hand.
He thought of Maggie. He thought of a letter she'd never sent, the one that said Dad, I forgive you. He thought of azaleas coming up in her garden this past spring, planted by a boy with dirt under his nails. And he thought of the engraving inside a gold band made on Broughton Street for a twenty-one-year-old girl: a crane in flight.
M.C. Fly high. Love, Dad.
Fly high, Silas thought, and the words came back to him the way Tommy had said them, simple as grace.
The food was free.
And so was the chair.