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"Reunion"

Enduring the family ties that bind
by Michael Moorhead

He hadn't wanted to come.  He hadn't wanted to get up at 5 a.m. and drive the 300 or so miles to get here.  He hadn't wanted to come all that way to meet people he didn't know and didn't care to know and wouldn't ever see again until one of them died and he had to bring Jan to the funeral.  He hadn't wanted to disturb his careful Saturday routine of yardwork, rest and not much.  But the sun was halfway through its climb to 100-plus degrees and here he was, in some godforsaken pasture a million miles from anywhere.  Actually, he and his wife and his three bored and spoiled children were in his wife's uncle's browning, near-barren grazing pasture amid dozens of lawn chairs and card tables, a half mile or more from the farmhouse, which was itself 15 miles from Happy, Texas, a wide spot in the road between the twin West Texas centers of culture: Lubbock and Amarillo.

When they had arrived some two hours earlier, Jan had instantly been engulfed by cousins and aunts and hugs and kisses, and he had no idea where she was or what she was doing; he just knew that she was in her element, "reunioning" for all she was worth.  The kids were equally involved: Sara, his sophisticated high school junior who was certain life in their Fort Worth suburb couldn't go on without her, was busy teaching cheerleading yells to a group of adoring 9-year-olds while keeping an eye open for any suitable (or unsuitable) young men; Jake was last seen on the back of Uncle Ted's Honda three-wheeler doing his best John Travolta mechanical bull routine; and Missy was playing mud pies not 50 yards from where he sat trying his best to appear relaxed and casual -- two feelings which he was quite far from really experiencing.

He hated these annual family reunions, and at the same time he hated himself for hating them.  He didn't like groups of people he didn't know well, and he didn't like trying to make small talk or polite conversation.  He had been snoozing off and on for about an hour in a sticky, rubbery-plastic lounge chair when a loud shriek off to his right jolted him upright.  He didn't recognize the alarmed cry as coming from one of his kids, but he decided to see who was in momentary pain.  He knew it was momentary because parents learn quickly to distinguish between real cries for help and the more common howls of temporary hurt and embarrassment.  Jake's replacement of the Honda, some little chunky blond boy, had flipped the machine onto its side, bruised both legs, torn a big rip in his jeans but was already struggling to right his fallen steed.   Jake and a couple of others were helping, so he could see he wasn't needed.   He looked around for Jan but didn't see her; he always felt out of place in almost any social gathering and liked to find Jan for moral support if nothing else.  One more quick look around...still no moral support.

So he wandered back to his resting spot, stretched out and began to look around, more out of boredom than from any real curiosity about the goings-on about him.

The girls were still occupied, so his attention drifted to his right, where a group of three or four guys in tight Wranglers and dusty boots were standing around spitting, telling jokes and laughing periodically.  He could see it was the tall, skinny one's turn, so he listened. 

"...so this milkman couldn't hardly believe it when he seen the note.   'Please leave 200 quarts of milk.  Thanks.  Mrs. Waverly.'  So he knocked on the back door, waited a moment, then knocked again.  Finally, a sleepy looking Mrs. Waverly come across the kitchen floor and opened the door.  'Yes?'   'Miz Waverly, I got your note, and I've just gotta check it with you first.   You want how many quarts of milk?'  'Why, 200...just like the note says.'   'Ok, ma'am, but whatcha need all that milk for?'  'Well, I was reading just the other day in Family Circle that the best treatment for delicate skin is a milk bath, and you know, Mr. Gandy, that my skin is delicate.'  'Uh, uh, well ma'am, do you want that pasteurize?'  'No, just enough to cover my titties.'"

And with the execution of the punch line, the group of men broke up with laughter, and he smiled a bit, too, at the old story.  Joke telling was a dependable ritual at these gatherings, but he didn't feel like joining them and continued looking around.  Some other fellows off to the side were busily scratching around in the dirt, drawing a map or giving directions, no doubt.  Still nothing of interest.   He could wander over to where the ladies were laying out enough food to satisfy the Green Bay Packers, but he knew that if he did, someone would ask him to unload her pot roast or potato salad or sweetened squash casserole from the back of her Suburban or to "run into town for a couple of bags of ice," so he dismissed the thought of wandering toward the food.  He sat down again with a weary thud.  Might as well wait for the call for dinner.

His inability to communicate comfortably with groups of strangers, other than the new group of college students he got each semester, allowed him an abundance of time at social gatherings to observe those around him.  Those two matrons off to his left fussing with silverware and arguing good-naturedly were probably farm wives of a couple of Uncle Ted's several sons: He and Maddie had nine or 10 kids, all but one of them boys and all of them still living on and working the dry, windswept land of the Texas Panhandle.  He knew they were farm wives by the sturdy dependability of their brown farm shoes, their flowery aprons and their knowing manner as they set out the food, moved the dogs out of their way with quick, firm kicks and busied themselves with the task of getting everything ready for the assembled family.  Two earth mothers if he knew anything about people.  Over against the fence were two drugstore cowboys, their jeans so new and their Tony Lamas so stiff that they could hardly walk.  Those two, probably grandsons or great-nephews of Uncle Ted, were as clearly out of place in the pasture as he was, only he knew it.

He had known it for a long time, and he had tried to talk Jan out of this reunion both for himself and the kids, although he had felt that a day of roughing it and meeting someone other than those friends they saw and visited with every day of the year might do them some good.  But nothing could sway her.  "We're going to this reunion because it's my family and Uncle Ted is 88 and he may not live much longer and you guys never want to do anything I plan and I'm tired of having to beg all of you and I want to go and I want you to go with me."  So here he was, but he hadn't wanted to come.  He was tired of observing those around him -- the matrons and the "cowboys" and the dozens of other connections to Ted and Maddie.  He just wanted to eat and take a little nap and be left alone and try to head home at a decent hour; two-lane Texas roads at night still scared him, and he tried to do all his driving in the daytime.

Just as he was about to feel sorry for himself again, Jan reappeared with a "howdy, stranger," as abruptly as she had disappeared.  "This has really been great; have you been doin' all right?  Ginger looks just the same.   Come on; I think she wants you to say grace."  She, he gathered, was Aunt Maddie, not Ginger.  Maddie's only daughter, because as Jan whispered the dreaded words, say grace, he saw Maddie mouthing the request in his direction even as she was trying to round up everybody and quiet them for his mealtime prayer. 

Oh my God, he thought to himself.  Why me?  Just because I'm the only one here wearing Weejuns and a polo and a sober expression who doesn't spend most of his time combing red dirt out of his hair and reading the Farm Journal.  She always asks me to pray; I always do, and I always hate it.  Just once I'd like to do what I heard a fellow did in my grandmother's country church.  Called upon to pray by the preacher, this brave-timid soul asked the members of the congregation to bow their heads in prayer.  They did and he left.  Just once.

"Yes, ma'am, I'd be glad to.  Let us pray.  Our Father, we are daily glad that you love us even when we aren't loveable.  Bless each family here, thank you for those who prepared this food, and be with us on our journeys home this evening.  Amen."

Short and to the point, he thought.  Maybe she'll ask someone else next time.

"Thanks, hon'; Aunt Maddie really does depend on you."

"Hurry up, Jan.  Grab a plate and let's get in line.  You know I hate to be the last to eat."

"Don't be in such a hurry, please.  Come over here and let some of the others ahead of us."

Impatient and tired and now frustrated, he felt himself being dragged away form the folding tables sagging under the weight of the trays of meats, the bowls of as many vegetables as he had ever seen and the rich-looking desserts to take his place toward the end of the now-lengthening line waiting on food.  So frustrated was he by this latest annoyance that at first he didn't see the tear emerge from Jan's right eye and slowly make its way down her face to her starched blouse; this first tear was quickly followed by others until Jan was softly but steadily boo-hooing away.

"Hey, babe, it's OK.  I don't mind, really.  I guess I can bring up the rear of a chow line for once in my life."

"Silly, that's not it.  You're sweet to put up with my relatives; I know you and the kids didn't want to come today, but they've found kids their own ages to play with, and if we hadn't come I never would have known..."

And with that she started to cry again.  He hugged her close, wiped her tears and waited for her to tell him what she never would have known.

"Uncle Roscoe and Uncle Ham both look just like Daddy; I miss him so much.  When they hugged me I smelled the liniment and aftershave Daddy always wore, and when I saw their crippled hands I almost started bawling."

When she said that, she did almost start bawling.  There was nothing he could say or needed to say, so he just hugged her again and kept hugging her as the serving line inched slowly forward.

It was going to be a long day, but somehow he didn't mind so much now.   He didn't even mind that he was going to have to drive home in the late hours of the evening with all four of them asleep and only the crazy late-night insomniac at WBAP for company.  He hadn't wanted to come, but he was glad he had.

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