As usual, his mother was the first to greet him. She burst out of the front door like a Christmas-spirit-infused meteor and half-jogged, half-hopped, towards him, her red Christmas sweater burning the eyes and her reindeer antlers bobbing jauntily. Thomas was enveloped in a smothering hug, and had to squirm to keep his ribs from breaking. Mothers may be unable to open that sealed-tight jar of peanut butter, and they may stumble when trying to lift heavy furniture, but when they have a chance to hug a child or grandchild, they become as powerful as linebackers.
After his mother released him and stepped back, Thomas looked at her gravely. It had been six months since he’d seen his parents, and his mother seemed to have aged a decade since then. Her sparkling eyes were surrounded by wrinkles, and her gray hair looked parched and unnatural, almost wig-like. She’d always been thin, but now her thinness looked like the skeletal weakness of old age.
“Hello there, my darling boy!” Jean Copeland warbled. “How was your drive?”
“Boring.”
“Boring? Why, you’re a stone’s throw away. Me and your father have to drive all the way up from Florida. I tell you, it’s been a looooong day already.”
“Yeah, you certainly look bushed,” Thomas said, grinning.
“Are you being sarcastic? Listen to you, sassing your momma! I tell you, if I slowed down for a second, I’d be out like a light. But I won’t slow down, because we’re all here now, on such a lovely day!”
She shepherded Thomas inside. As he stepped across the threshold, he felt, as he always did, like he’d entered a catalog or a movie set depicting an upper-middle-class home. Hardwood floors shone. The stairs and banister were stately. Tasteful pictures lined the walls. He turned into the gargantuan living room, with the theater-screen-sized television, the plush sofa that begged one to nap on it, the potted plants that looked as if they’d never wilt, the fireplace that was spotless because it was never used, and the imposing oak bookshelf, where light and skim-worthy volumes (well-thumbed) sat side by side hefty and learned tomes (covered with dust).
Dan was talking to his father. Both men held glasses of eggnog, and with their erect carriage, careful gestures, and clear, brook-no-argument voices, they were as lofty as senators. (Dan, who had put on a few pounds, admittedly looked slightly less senatorial.) Both men turned as one when he entered, and Thomas felt much like a functionary about to be interrogated by a congressional sub-committee.
“Hello, son,” his father said, extending a hand. Thomas shook it reluctantly, as Frank Copeland’s handshake rivaled Vernon Oxendine’s in strength.
As father and son looked each other over, Thomas saw that Frank Copeland had also aged. His hair, which had been receding for twenty years, had now almost completely deserted him; only a few wisps hung around his ears and the back of his head. Like his wife, he had an astounding amount of wrinkles. Yes, he still looked senatorial, but he certainly wasn’t a freshman senator.
“Hey, dad,” Thomas said. “Hey, Dan.”
Dan nodded and also proffered his hand. His handshake was firm but not cartoonishly muscular, the handshake of a man who didn’t feel the need to express his virility and power via a grasping of sweaty appendages.
“How are you, Thomas?” Dan asked. It was the light-yet-commanding voice that had swayed juries, judges, potential clients, and disgruntled secretaries. It made Thomas uneasy, though he knew Dan was a hell of a lawyer, and seemed to be a fair husband — especially considering the wife he had to put up with.
“I’m good,” Thomas replied. “Yourself?”
“Lots of work, as usual. How’s the grocery store?”
“The same as ever.”
“And old Vernon?”
Vernon and Dan had met once years ago, when Emily and Dan had visited Thomas at the store during one of their vacations to the Crystal Coast. Vernon’s rambunctiousness offended Dan’s lawyerly calm, and vice versa. After Vernon had asked how many lawyers it took to screw in a lightbulb, and then supplied the answer before anyone could hazard a guess, Dan had said goodbye curtly and walked out of the store. Emily, angry that her husband had let a lowly shopkeeper get under his skin, had followed in his wake. Vernon said nothing more, but his wink to Thomas was eloquent.
“Like the store: the same as ever.”
With these preliminaries over, Dan and Thomas’s father could return to their conversational topic, which was the price of gas.
“What about you, Thomas?” his father asked. “Did you ever expect to see two-dollar gas again?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Me neither. All I can say is: thank God for fracking.”
“It’s a dubious practice,” Dan said, “but it does bear fruit. Liquid fruit, I should say.” He smiled — but not too widely — at his witticism.
“I hope I see the day when this country is Energy Independent,” Frank Copeland stated. He might have been addressing a crowd of thousands. “When other countries come to us for oil, not the other way around.”
“Yes, that would be nice,” Thomas said blandly.
Jean Copeland had disappeared into the kitchen, but she now reappeared with a mug of eggnog, which she shoved into Thomas’s hands.
“Drink up!” she said. “Oh, it’s so delicious!”
“Always is,” Thomas said, grateful for the mildly alcoholic drink. He’d have to scrounge through the Dowling family’s kitchen cabinets for stronger stuff if he was to survive this holiday, especially after what had happened at the Oxendine’s Grocery Christmas Party. Orianna’s capitulation was still fresh on his mind. He assumed she’d given Vernon her notice yesterday, but he wasn’t certain; Vernon hadn’t said anything about it yet, and Thomas damn sure wasn’t going to ask.
Then again — maybe Orianna had changed her mind, and maybe his gruff speech had been a factor in the reversal…
His sister blasted out of the kitchen, furiously wiping her hands on a towel, then stopped when she saw him.
“You’re late,” Emily said.
“I don’t believe I am,” Thomas replied. “I got here at 3:50, and I said I’d arrive between one and four PM.”
“Yeah… well… maybe you can come a little earlier next time. Mom and Dad drive up all the way from St. Augustine, and they’re still here hours before you.”
“Honey, let’s not bicker…” Dan began, before a look from his wife silenced him. Dan Dowling was respected at the law firm where he worked (and feared, by lesser employees), but in the presence of his wife he was but a footman before a dowager empress. And this was Christmas, a time when Emily had a dozen Plans that had to come off perfectly, and so he found his power further decreased.
Thomas studied his glaring sister, as he’d studied his parents and Dan. Emily Dowling, née Copeland, however, betrayed no signs of aging, nor had she put on weight. (In truth, she weighed five more pounds than she had at age eighteen, a fact which bothered her more than it should, since she was of the “every woman is beautiful” school.) Her figure, currently wrapped in tight jeans and an old Barack Obama CHANGE t-shirt, still enticed: at the supermarket, men of all ages followed her not-so-stealthily down the aisles, pretending they needed soy sauce or charcoal, depending on her route. When she jogged through the neighborhood in spandex and sports bra, she was conscious of the stares of yardmen, postal workers, husbands who happened to be home, wives who looked like they wouldn’t mind a same-sex fling, if only someone would initiate it for them, and skateboarding teenagers.
When she complained to Dan about this “juvenile ogling,” Dan suggested that maybe she shouldn’t jog in such risque attire. This caused Emily to flare up like a volcano that had suddenly decided to annihilate a chunk of civilization: “I should be able to wear what I want, when I want, without having some Cro-Magnon assholes undressing me with their beady little eyes! It’s not my fault they can’t control themselves!” Dan murmured out a few words that have not been remembered, then returned to the New York Times article he’d been reading.