She dipped her finger in the gravy and tasted it. “I don’t think so. Unless you two want to set the table.”
We said we’d be glad to. Travis and I went to the cupboard, and he handed me off enough plates for five.
“You and me. Your ma. Tom. Who else is coming?” I asked him.
“My father,” he replied. “He wanted to talk some stuff out with Ma.”
Making plans for the big move, I reckoned.
I swallowed hard. “That’s . . . um.”
Travis spun on me and crossed his arms over his chest.
“That all you got to say about it? ‘Um’?”
I couldn’t tell if he was funnin’ me or not.
Even if he was, I decided I didn’t feel much like joking. “No. That’s not all I have to say.”
“Well, then?”
I stepped up and set my hands on my hips. “I don’t want you to go. I don’t think it’s right. First, because I’m selfish, and I like having you around. But second, because I don’t trust your pa. He left you all alone! And now, out of the blue, he turns up and wants to be your daddy? If you ask me, there’s something rotten up that creek!”
“Who’s your outspoken friend, Travis?” came a man’s voice from behind me.
“This here’s Genuine,” Travis said. “Genuine, this is Kip. My father.”
He was a beefy type, well-muscled and fit. His hair was cut short, and I could see where Travis got his big ears from.
“Something rotten up the creek, huh?” He reached out a hand to shake.
“Surely even you will admit the stench is a mite fishy, sir,” I replied, though my voice shook a little.
He lowered his hand. “Fishy, because a man wants to know his boy?”
I stood my ground. “Fishy because he doesn’t care whether he uproots his boy from a life he and his ma worked hard to build—without any help from that man, I’ll add, when help was surely owed!” Warming to my subject, I pulled out my preaching finger. “Do you know they have a family business here? People rely on them for wedding cakes and skin smears and whatnot! They’ve got friends who care about them!”
“I can see that,” Travis’s pa replied.
But I wasn’t done. “It’s not fair what you’re doing here, sir. And it’s selfish. And if you’re really trying to convince folks that you’ve changed, it’s precisely this sort of selfishness you might want to take a gander at!”
“Is that so?” Kip asked.
“Yes, sir. It is.” But my engine was running down. I was hearing my own words and thinking Kip might not be the only feckless father I was mad at. I dropped my arms to my sides and said a little more softly, “Now, I apologize if I’ve been rude, but sometimes a body’s got to call it like they see it.”
“Can’t argue with that,” he agreed. He raised an eyebrow in Travis’s direction, then walked out.
Suddenly embarrassed, I set myself to folding Miz Tromp’s dainty cloth napkins. When I finally looked up, Travis stared like he was seeing me for the first time.
“Sorry if I was outside my rights,” I whispered.
He shook his head. “You wasn’t.”
“There’s a tiny chance some of that upscuddle wasn’t actually about you and your pa.”
“Probably. But I’m still glad you said it.”
As I set out Miz Tromp’s good silver forks, I couldn’t help noticing how fine they were, real ornate and heavy in the hand. Like the kind I imagined my great-great-gram might have had.
It had been a while since I’d thought about her. All at once, I couldn’t help wondering if she and Gram, and Gram’s ma and my ma, too, were all together somewhere. What would they be doing? What did dead wish fetchers do for fun?
Maybe, I thought, they disguise themselves as stars and grant wishes.
We sat down to eat around four. Things were a little uneasy to start, with Tom and Kip at the table, and at cross purposes. Miz Tromp was a fine hostess, though, and soon everyone was, well, politely unclenched. Plus, it turned out Kip was a jokester—his tales were real ripsnorters! All at once, it was plain where Travis got his hidden comedy streak. It was also plain why Travis might want to go to California.
And considering the way Miz Tromp looked at Tom while they talked herbal medicines and alternative treatment retreats, it was pretty easy to see why she was in so much agony over Travis’s dilemma.
As for me, I knew I had to content myself with enjoying Travis’s company now, for however long it lasted. Twice, while we ate, I poked Travis in the arm, just for the sake of feeling his warm skin under my fingertip. Both times, he didn’t look up at me but caught my finger in the crook of his own and gave me a tug.
“I’d forgotten how small Sass was,” Kip said at one point. “How many people in town?”
I was the only one who knew offhand. “Five hundred twenty-three last week. MaryLou Haines had twins.”
“Do you know everyone by name?” he asked me.
“Just about,” I replied. “A few folks like to keep to themselves.”
“I’ve been wondering about those off-gridders, how they fared out there, with all the weather,” said Miz Tromp.
All the weather was the name the town had unofficially agreed on for our overly wet fall and the recent unlikely pairing of snow and flood.
“They get radio, don’t they?” Tom asked.
I nodded. “I think so.”
“And TV, of course,” said Kip.
Travis, Miz Tromp, and me laughed all at once.
“What did I say?” Kip asked, smiling good-naturedly.
“Nobody has TV,” Travis said.
“Well, folks who have computers can get some of it,” I clarified. “And we do have two channels, kind of. The cooking channel and the static news channel.”
“The static news channel?” Kip echoed.
“Today in Washington—ssssssst,” Travis mimicked, “a large pair of pants—ssssssst. In weather—ssssssst. A bear! Hahaha!”
“You’re kidding.” Kip was plainly horrified.