Carpe Diem, page 10
By this time, the bacon is cooked so we remove them from the oven and bump the heat up to 350 for the Spam apple turnovers to cook. Chef offers us a break and a chance to try our bacon-covered Spam.
“Mom, are we really going to eat this?” Bryna whispers.
“I think it would be rude not to.” I laugh.
“It looks funny, and what was with that jelly stuff that was all over it when I took it out of the pan?”
Flynn and I are laughing uncontrollably at this point. The look on her face as she looks and sniffs at the bacon-Spam appetizer she has picked up is priceless.
When she finally takes a tiny bite, I am surprised when she doesn’t immediately spit it out. After a second of chewing, she pops the rest into her mouth.
“Dang, this is pretty good,” she blurts.
“Oh, honey. You didn’t think ole Chef would steer you wrong did you?” Chef responds as he squeezes in to take a few pieces for himself.
The rest of the class was full of fun and laughter. We created six Spam-inspired items. Some I wouldn’t mind making again at home. The others, well, let’s just say I will have to find a way to apologize to my taste buds later.
When class is finished and all the food was packaged up for us to take home, we pose for a quick picture with Chef. He gives us each a hug and tells us that he wants to see us back sometime. He offered to create a whole new Spam menu for us.
After putting our food in the car, I invite Bryna to help me find the perfect spot for the piece of Dad’s mug. She smiled and started looking around. Flynn disappeared for a moment and returned with a garden spade.
“Thought you might need this, the ground is pretty solid.”
“Thank you, I didn’t even think about that.”
“I found a spot,” Bryna yells.
I turn to see her standing near a small tree. It looks so sad with all its leaves gone. Flynn and I walk over and Bryna and I do our best to dig a small hole.
It took some muscle, but we were able to get a hole big enough for the small piece.
“Good idea with the garden spade,” I say as I hand the spade back to Flynn.
He gives me a smile and steps back. He starts to walk back to the car to give us privacy, I assume.
“Where are you going?” Bryna asks.
“I thought I would let you and your mom have a few minutes alone.
“No, stay… you are part of this,” she tells him.
Flynn looks to me for approval. I give him a nod and a smile, letting him know I wanted him to stay.
Bryna says a few words and places the glass in the hole and covers it. As she stands, she wipes away the few tears that have escaped. When we get home, I follow my new routine and pull the list out and let her cross the item off the list.
Take a cooking class
The next morning, Bryna and I are up early prepping for our big Thanksgiving feast. I may have gone a little overboard on the invites. Let’s see—my mom, dad, Abby, Dave, Casey, Chuck, Leo, Flynn, Bryna, me, and Jack’s parents said they might stop by. Yikes, twelve people. I sure hope this damn turkey is big enough.
“Bryna, I need you to bring all the chairs from the dining room into the living room,” I yell.
“Yes, Mom, I know. You already told me three times.”
“Okay, okay. I just want everything set up before we go.”
“Mom, it will be fine,” Bryna assures me.
An hour later, we have everything set. The turkey is cooking away in the oven, and the table is set up for the buffet style dinner I am doing since space is limited.
“Mom, are you sure you want to go today? We can go later or tomorrow if you want,” Bryna asks.
“No, I want to go before dinner. I know that I will be exhausted and then I will feel guilty for not going sooner.”
“I think Dad would understand.”
“I know, and he is probably up there laughing at my neurotic behavior, and I don’t care.”
After finishing a few final touches and packing my small bag for our visit, Bryna and I jump in the car and head toward the cemetery. Along the way, Bryna and I make a pit stop at the neighborhood florist, who lucky for us is open until noon today. With all my prep work for today, I completely forget to pick up flowers for Jack. Not that he would actually care, he was never a flower type of guy. Yes, he brought home a bouquet from time to time, but only because he knew I loved getting them.
The cemetery is busier than it usually is when I come to visit. I suppose it is the holidays that bring people out. Everyone misses their loved ones a little more when the calendar makes you take a break from the normal day to day routines and reminds us the loved ones we once shared these days with are no longer with us.
I park the car down the hill from where Jack lay. Bryna grabs my hand and squeezes, letting me know she is here.
“You ready?” I ask.
“Ready when you are.” She smiles.
I take a deep breath and open my car door. I grab the flowers from the backseat and we walk up the small hill.
As we approach his headstone, I watch Bryna wipe away a few tears. This is about the time I would normally start crying, but I think I have become so used to this walk that my tears are easier to hold back.
I’m a little curious when I see a card next to his headstone. I look to Bryna to see if she was the one who left the card. She shakes her head no. When we approach the headstone, I once again read the words I chose to sit alongside his name and dates.
Here lies a grateful son, loving husband,
proud father, and caring friend…
The past is history. The future is a mystery.
We will hold dear our memories of him,
his smile, and the sound of his laughter… forever.
And forever he will be missed.
I kneel down and place the flowers in front of the marble stone and pick up the envelope. Simple block handwriting spells “Mrs. Jack Reynolds.” I look around to see if anyone is watching from afar, but I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. No one is lurking behind a tree or waiting in a car to see my reaction.
“Who do you think it is from?” Bryna asks.
“I have no idea?” I respond as I rip open the envelope.
It is a sympathy card. The front is a basic fall pattern with gold and yellow leaves. The words “Our thoughts and prayers are with you today” are arranged in large script font. When I open the card more gold leaf designs and the words “Those whom we have loved ever so deeply never really leave us. They live on in our hearts forever.” I also see that it is unsigned. Someone left an unsigned sympathy card. Who the hell would do something like that?
As if today was not hard enough, some jackass had to add a mystery to my day. I should be thankful that someone was thoughtful enough to want to leave me a card, but then why not sign it? Deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. Okay, I think rather than losing my shit over a card, I am going to assume that the person that left it forgot to sign it. I’m sure we have all done that before. This could not have been intentional, it had to have been an accident.
After shaking off the weirdness of the unsigned card, Bryna and I spend a little time cleaning up the leaves and old flowers before spreading out a blanket and pulling the Tupperware along with two forks from my bag.
Bryna and I take a seat and prepare to devourer two large pieces of cherry cheesecake. Jack’s favorite pie for Thanksgiving was not a traditional pumpkin or apple, or even one of the French silk pie everyone craves. Nope, it was plain old cherry cheesecake, and he didn’t like to share. I would make a cherry cheesecake just for him for Thanksgiving while Bryna and I got to fight over the pumpkin. He would sit at the table with the whole tin and slowly eat bite after bite until it was gone in one sitting. He didn’t want to take the chance that one of us would sneak a few bites when he wasn’t looking.
“Oh, good idea, Mom!” Bryna shouts when she sees what I have.
“I thought your dad would get a kick out of it.” I laugh.
We slowly take bite after bite, enjoying each and every one of them as he would have. Bryna jokingly starts to make the little moaning sounds, but almost loses a cherry when she starts laughing at the memories.
“Mom, when are you going to start dating?”
I nearly choke when the words come flying out of nowhere. My gut reaction is to laugh at her question until I see she is perfectly serious.
“Oh, um. I, ah, hmm, well maybe one day when there are flying cars and a colony on the moon,” I joke.
Bryna lets out a small laugh at my attempt at humor.
“No, Mom, seriously. I don’t want you to be alone for the rest of your life.”
She looks at me with such sorrow it breaks my heart.
“Oh, sweetie. I’m not alone. I have your Aunt Casey, Abby, and Flynn and most importantly, I have you.”
“Yeah, but they are all busy with their lives and with me off at school you don’t have anyone to come home to.”
“Well, honey, even if I were to start dating someone it’s not like I would start living with them right away,” I point out .
“No, I know, but you know what I mean.”
“Yes, sweetie, I do. However, these things take time. I have never considered or thought about being with anyone other than your father. Oh wait, I did daydream about Channing Tatum once. How about Channing Tatum… Can I date him?”
Bryna let out a small laugh, trying to hide her smile peeking out from behind her sad eyes.
“No, you can’t. He is already married.”
“Damn, then I should just join a convent because he would have been my one and only hope for future happiness.” I laugh.
Bryna is not able to hide her smile any longer. I love to see her smile. She has had to deal with so much over the last year and a half. I wish I could take all that pain and worry away and just let her worry about being a young adult and not me.
“Come on, let’s get going. People will start arriving soon.”
“Okay, but promise me, here in front of Dad that you will not wait forever. It’s not like you are super young or anything… if you wait too long, you may only be able to choose from the guys Viagra can’t even help.”
“Bryna!” I shout, laughing.
“What, it’s true… you’re approaching that hill everyone talks about, and it’s all downhill after that.” She laughs loudly.
“My God, you are truly your father's daughter,” I tell her.
After folding the blanket and repacking my bag, I kneel down one more time and lay my hand on the cold marble.
“If I didn’t know any better, I would think you had put her up to that.” I pause and look back at Bryna, who smiles back at me as I continue. “Although, I will make you both this promise. I will always keep you in my heart, and if I should find someone worthy of sharing my heart with, I promise I will not turn my back on the possibility of where that could lead.”
“Thank you, again for coming,” I say as I wave to everyone from the door.
It’s about time everyone was on their way. Don’t get me wrong, I loved having everyone here, but now I am ready to sit back and relax in my comfortable clothes. Maybe even curl up with a glass of wine and watch a movie.
Bryna left an hour ago to go hang out with some friends before she has to leave again. Ah, the sweet sound of the quiet. You never truly appreciate the quiet until you have had a houseful of people wanting to talk your ear off or offer to help a billion times when you have told them repeatedly that you have everything under control.
I love them all for being here for Bryna and me today and appreciate everything they have done for us since Jack passed. He would be happy to know that we are being well taken care of. My mind is wandering when I hear CLINK, CLINK coming from the kitchen.
“Hello?” I call out.
“Yes,” a voice calls back.
“Flynn, I thought you left with the rest. You nearly scared me half to death,” I say, walking into the kitchen.
“Sorry, I wanted to get some of these dishes done for you.”
“You really didn’t have to do that.” I smile as I lean against the doorway.
“I really do. In my family, the cook of the Thanksgiving feast does not do the dishes.”
“Ah, but you let the cook do the dishes the rest of the year.”
“Of course. Who wants to do dishes more than once, maybe twice a year?” He laughs and sets the dish he finished drying on the counter.
“Are you heading to your Moms next?” I ask.
“Nah, she has had a long days with my brother and his kids, they have long been in their turkey comas by now. I don’t need to wake them.”
“You are welcome to stay and have some pie with me… I was just thinking a slice of pumpkin sounds good.”
“I don’t want to overstay my welcome. I should get going.”
“Flynn, you could never overstay your welcome. Stay, have some pie. Unless you think my pie isn’t any good.”
“If you insist.”
“I do.”
After grabbing wine, pie, and Reddi-wip, we take a seat on the floor in front of the coffee table and begin digging in. Two hours later, we have devoured one whole pumpkin pie, emptied two and a half bottles of wine, and managed to laugh our way through the evening.
“Flynn, let me ask you a question.”
“I told you I’m not gay.” He laughs.
“No, I want to know why you are so good to us?”
“I’m not sure what you mean?”
“Well, for as long as I can remember you have always been there to help out.”
“I’m a nice guy?”
“You are, but that’s not why.”
“I guess if I knew what you were talking about…”
“For example, why did you make Jack a partner when you started the company?”
“I don’t know what you mean, we started it together.”
“Flynn. Jack put up a thousand dollars and you put up the hundred thousand your dad left you when he passed away.”
“Yeah, so?”
“You made Jack an even partner with you.”
“So.”
“Why?”
“I still don’t know what you mean.”
“The hell you don’t,” I say as I start getting angry.
“What does it matter now?” he asks with irritation.
“Because Jack always brushed it off when I asked and I’ve always wanted to know.”
“It doesn’t really matter does it?”
“It does to me. Why is it such a big secret?”
I’m getting a bit irritated. Why has he turned my simple little question into such a big deal?
“Why does it matter?”
“I don’t know why, it just does.”
“It shouldn't.”
“Look, I know you two were like brothers, but for you to use all your inheritance when we had nothing to offer, well, that is just too kind.”
“Why is that too kind? I didn’t know there was such a thing.”
“Because people just don’t do that, even for their best friend.”
“I do, and besides Jack had the landscaping experience that I didn’t.”
“Flynn, he didn’t have that much experience. Quit stalling and just answer my question, or…”
“Or what?” he says with a smug grin.
I’m not sure if it is the wine, the irritation, or his smug little grin he is wearing, but I pick up the can of Reddi-wip sitting next to the empty pie tin and hold it up.
“What do you think you are going to do with that?” he asks, amused.
“If you don’t tell me what I want to know I’m going to cream you,” I say and spray a small dab of Reddi-wip in my mouth.
“You don’t have the guts.”
“Don’t I?”
“I don’t believe you do,” he tells me.
“Are you going to answer my question?”
“Nope.”
And with that four-letter word lingering in the air, I give the can one more good shake and begin spraying Flynn’s face, chest, and arms. He sits still and allows me to complete my masterpiece without interruption. Once I have finally run out of Reddi-wip, I sit back to take a look at my work.
“Are you done?” Flynn asks.
“No, I don’t think so… You are missing one little thing,” I respond.
I jump up and run to the kitchen to retrieve the maraschino cherries I have in the refrigerator. The fridge is so full it takes me a few minutes to find the jar hiding in the back. I should have insisted on everyone taking home more leftovers.
As the thought runs through my head, I can feel eyes burning a hole in the back of my head. I turn right in time to see a large white ball of cream flying toward me.
“Ahhhh, you're gonna pay for that,” I tell him.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” he replies.
I tried to turn back to the fridge for another can of Reddi-wip, but he was too fast and I only manage to knock it off the shelf onto the floor. Flynn grabs me from behind and smears more Reddi-wip all over my face and hair. I wiggle my way out of his hold and scurry toward the can rolling around. Flynn grabs my legs and pulls me toward him away from the can.
I turn toward him and grab a clump of cream resting on his shoulder and smear it all over his face. That distracts him long enough for me to break free and get to the can of Reddi-wip. I pop the top and shake well. Flynn charges me and I once again begin spraying him with the creamy goodness.
There is so much whipped cream on the floor now that you can’t tell what color the tile is below us. Flynn is able to get a hold of my arms and with his superior strength, he spins my arm to direct the can nozzle at me and then forces my finger to press down, shooting Reddi-wip directly at me. I wiggle and struggle to get free, but my movements cause us to lose our balance and we tumble to the floor. As I lie on the floor, our laughter can probably be heard in China but I don’t care. Reddi-wip is everywhere, my hair, my clothes, up my nose all over the kitchen, but again, I don’t care.
“Are you okay?” Flynn asks me between bellows.
“Yep, couldn’t be better,” I snort back.
