“Name,” Ethan finished, and he pressed the pie plate into my hands as if it were the last warm thing in the world. “The house in Florida is in your name, Grandma. Dad and Mr. Gary bought it two years ago. A four bedroom on the Gulf, in Fort Myers. Dad signed your name on the papers, and Mr. Gary notarized them.” He swallowed. “They did the same with the boat. I saw the title in the office of my dad. It says Martha Holloway, Owner.” The truck driver on my porch, Gary, whom Ethan had called a business partner, held the boat keys by their float and said nothing at all.
I sat down very slowly on the porch swing. The wind chimes went on, merrily, as though the world were unchanged. “Mr. Gary,” I said, “is this true?” The big sunburned man twisted his cap in his hands. “Mrs. Holloway,” he said, “I am sorry to say it is. I put up half the money, and I thought it was the mother in law of Scott who owned it. Last week, I tried to refinance, and the bank said the owner of record was a seventy eight year old widow in Mississippi who had never heard of me. I drove up here to find out whether I had been robbed.”
Scott had not moved from the driveway. His face, which had been red, was the color of cold gravy. Karen stood beside him, in her fur trimmed coat, motionless as a post. “Scott,” she said slowly, “you told me you were renting the house to a client.” He shook his head. “Karen, it was an investment,” he said. “It was supposed to make us a lot of money. I needed the credit of your mother because mine was shot.” Karen looked at me. For the first time in many years, I saw the eyes of my daughter without any cleverness in them at all. She looked about nine years old.
A pie left on a porch can carry a grandson across a great deal of family trouble.
I called the sheriff in front of them all. I did not want to do it. It felt like cutting off my own hand. But I have lived long enough to know that a thing grows when you feed it, and I had fed this one for five years. A deputy in a tan uniform came within the hour, and he listened to Gary, and he looked at the pie plate, and he asked to see the title papers. Scott sat down on my steps and put his head between his knees. Karen was weeping into her coat sleeve. I did not go to her. I thought she might need to stand on her own.
The investigation was long. The notary turned out to be a friend of Gary named Mr. Holt who had been stamping documents for eleven years without once checking an identification. The real estate agent in Fort Myers had no idea. The bank in Mississippi, which had issued the mortgage in my name, canceled it as fraud the moment I filed a sworn statement. The boat was seized and sold at auction, and the money repaid Gary half of what he had put in. The house, with a judgment against Scott, went on the market in February.
Scott pleaded guilty to forgery and fraud in April and was sentenced to four years. Gary, who had been duped, testified for the state and went home to Pensacola with a handshake from the judge. Karen did not attend the sentencing. She had moved out of the forever home two weeks earlier, to a rented duplex near her work. When I called, she did not answer for a month. Then, one Tuesday, she left a message on my machine. Her voice was small. “Mama,” it said, “I am not asking for anything. I only wanted you to know I am alive.”
I called her back that night. We said very little. We both listened to the breathing at the other end. I told her I loved her. She said she knew. At the end, she asked whether I was still making the sweet potato pie, and I said I was, but that I only made it for family, and she was quiet, and then she said, “Mama, am I still family?” I held the phone to my heart and had to put my hand over my mouth. “Karen Ann,” I said, “you have been family since before you were born.”
That Saturday, I set the table for four. It was a week after Thanksgiving, but nobody cared. Ethan arrived first, with a bag of rolls and a bouquet of grocery store carnations, and I put them in the vase that held the roses of Bill. Karen came last, in a plain gray sweater, with no coat and no sunglasses and no jewelry except her wedding ring, which she twisted nervously. She stood in the doorway. “Mama,” she said, “can I help with the gravy?” I put an apron in her hands.
We cooked all afternoon in the old kitchen, the three of us, shoulder to shoulder. I had made four pies, as I had that Tuesday, and they had waited under foil in the pantry. Pumpkin, pecan, apple, and sweet potato. I put the sweet potato pie in front of Karen. She cut herself a slice, closed her eyes, and ate it with her fingers, the way she had when she was six. “It tastes exactly the same,” she said, crying. “Of course it does,” I said. “It is the recipe of my mother. It does not change.”
After supper, Ethan, who is twenty and quiet and gentle as a deer, helped me wash the dishes. We worked side by side at the sink, the water running hot, the steam curling around the window. “Grandma,” he said, drying a plate, “I am going to the community college in January. I am going to study business law.” I laughed so hard I had to hold the counter. “My word,” I said, “somebody has to stop all this nonsense.” He grinned. “That is the plan.”
When everyone had left, I stood alone in my kitchen under the yellow light. The carving knife of Bill hung on its hook beneath his photograph. I took it down, held it in both hands, and turned it over in the light. It was clean and sharp. Nobody had used it in eleven years. “Bill,” I said, “next year, we are carving the turkey here.” I hung it back on the hook. And on the windowsill, the pie plate with the chipped rim sat, empty and clean, waiting for whatever came next.