Taking Stock (23 page)

Nonetheless, Gregg picked up the bags and carried them to two neighboring rooms at the end of the hall. He could hear his mother’s constant chatter and he walked out dreading what she would say. She was a sweet woman with an innocent directness. She used it like a battering ram to get at what she wanted to know.
Eric
a was a closed book. He hoped his mother would figure that out and have the good sense to back off.

Outside, Gregg pulled on a pair of leather gloves and hopped up on the tailgate. He caught a conspiratorial look between his brothers as he joined them in the bed of the truck.

“Hey, does your boyfriend let you drive
?
” Tom asked.

Gregg ignored him, grabbed hold of the frame and grunted as they all pulled together.

“Gregg, man, you’ve gone soft from city living. Maybe you should go help mom in the kitchen,” quipped his youngest brother Rick.

 Gregg didn’t argue. He missed the farm. His brothers had married women who played the farmer’s wife perfectly. They cooked, cleaned and raised children while their husbands worked themselves to the brink from planting to harvest.
Eric
a would never fit that mold. She was tough, independent, educated, and not the slightest bit marriage-minded. This bothered Gregg far more than any worn-out one-liner his brothers could throw at him.

The men jerkily rocked the machine off the truck and onto the tractor. When they jumped down and got ready to move it inside, Tom began again, “You know, Gregg–”

Frank cut him off and offered some support for his eldest son. “That’s enough boys. When either of you makes as much money as
Eric
a or Gregg with those fancy city jobs, you come talk to me. I thank God your mother stuck to home. She would have been impossible to live with otherwise. Cut your brother some slack.”

The conversation ended.

The brothers uttered only a few directional adjustments to Frank as he maneuvered the tractor into the back corner of the barn. They didn’t make even one rude gesture as they guided the heater into place. They were busy hatching new jabs for later.

As soon as it was aligned, they abandoned the machine and went inside. Getting it hooked up was a job for another day.

Eric
a found herself alone with Gregg’s mom. He hadn’t said two words about his family on the ride down, instead talking about the farm and what happened there this time of year. She stood in his childhood home wondering what he did here as a kid. Everything about this place was different from what she’d known and she had no idea what his family would expect of her. Mrs. Turner divided her attention between four pots on the stovetop and a roast turkey cooling on the counter, while she sputtered a constant stream of questions that
Eric
a wasn’t ready to answer.

There was a cozy table in the corner that overlooked the expansive brown field. “Can I help you set the table, Mrs. Turner
?
”

“Please, Dear, call me Sue.” She showed
Eric
a into the dining room to a cabinet stacked with dishes and a drawer filled with silverware.

Eric
a grabbed four forks, knives and spoons and followed Sue back into the kitchen.

Sue began stirring gravy, but stopped when she saw
Eric
a headed for the breakfast nook. “Not there, Dear. We’ll eat in the dining room.”

Eric
a turned back to the room they had left. “Which places shall I set
?
”

“All of them.”

Eric
a counted. “All ten
?
”

Eric
a’s mother was her only living family. Mother had a boyfriend who’d asked to marry her twice. With his two children the marriage would bring her entire family to five. Dinner for ten on Wednesday was quite unexpected.

“The whole family’s coming,” Sue said. “Gregg has two brothers, Tom and Rick. Tom’s wife, Dianne, is driving over now. Rick lives next door with his wife, Claudia, and their two boys, Matthew and Justin.”

“Wow, you have a big family.”
Eric
a repeated the names to herself as she placed silverware around the table.

Sue peeked in from the kitchen. “Not so big, just two grandchildren. My sister has seven. On Memorial Day we have a cookout and all of Gregg’s aunts, uncles and cousins come. There were over ninety people last year.”

“How do you remember all those names
?
”

“Remember
?
We’re never apart long enough to forget. In a family this big there’s always something to celebrate. We see each other pretty often. Don’t worry, you’ll learn them easy enough.”

Eric
a stared at the first place setting, wondering how Sue turned a three day visit into a lifetime commitment. Or was it Gregg
?

Sue appeared behind her and reached for a fork. “Let me help you, Dear. Forks go on the left, knives and spoons on the right. Like this.” Sue picked up a napkin, creased it diagonally and set the fork on top.

Eric
a blushed. Proper table setting wasn’t something she’d learned from her mother. She wished she’d taken the initiative to learn on her own. She had a queasy feeling about her first impression, but Sue changed the subject to Gregg’s future as an excellent husband and father.
Eric
a forgot her place-setting weakness and moved on to larger worries.

The men burst in the front door. They headed for the kitchen sink where they washed one after another and passed the towel from man to man before hovering around the sliced turkey on the counter. They took turns distracting Mrs. Turner while the others sampled her cooking. She knew what was happening, but feigned ignorance.
Eric
a watched, relieved to be free of the homey chat with Mrs. Turner. She had no inclination for cooking or mothering and she gladly tuned in when Mr. Turner started talking about planting time.

The screen door slammed behind Matthew and Justin as they ran full speed into the kitchen.

“Boys!” shouted Frank.

Sneakers squealed as the boys skidded to a halt in the middle of the kitchen floor. “This is not a racetrack. There are twelve hundred acres outside. You can go out there and run yourself silly until the fields are planted. Inside, we walk.”

Rick glared at his children.

“Yes, Sir,” they mumbled.

Frank motioned them to come to him.
Eric
a turned slowly toward the dining room, not wanting to see them get spanked. From the corner of her eye, she saw the boys give their grandfather a tight squeeze.

Sue herded a reflective
Eric
a and the rest of the family toward the table. Frank came in last carrying a grandson under each arm. When he set them down, they climbed into seats on either side of Sue. Gregg and Tom sat at the opposite end, on either side of Frank while the women and Rick clustered in the middle. As Frank said grace,
Eric
a bowed her head and spied the faces around the table. Frank and Sue were firmly in control, yet their children and grandchildren adored them. It didn’t take a special occasion to bring them here. The atmosphere was so foreign she lost track of Frank’s prayer.

When grace was said, Frank passed heavy platters filled with turkey, ham and vegetables one by one to Gregg and on down the table. As
Eric
a passed the platters to Claudia, she noticed how young she looked, thirty or thirty-two. She hadn’t spent much time with children, but figured Matthew to be at least eight.

“You must be proud of the boys. They act so grown up,”
Eric
a said.

“They grow up fast. I can’t believe Matthew’s ten and Justin’s nine.”

Eric
a nodded as she passed a dish of mashed potatoes. Babies at twenty-two
?
Dianne looked about twenty-five. No doubt children were in her immediate future. Was
Eric
a a spinster in this room, single at thirty-four
?

“They don’t behave this well at home. Grandpa keeps them in line.”

“I noticed.”

Sue chimed in from her end, “Don’t let his bark fool you. He’s a big teddy bear.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,”
Eric
a said.

Dianne looked up from her plate. “Gregg tells us you’re almost finished with your master’s.”

Eric
a nodded. “Finally. All the work is done. I graduate next week.”

Sue looked down the table at her husband. “That’s terrific! I don’t think we know another woman with a master’s degree.”

Frank tore off a large chunk of bread. “I don’t think we know a man with a master’s degree, except Dr. Colby and maybe one of the teachers down at the school. Computer Science, isn’t it
Eric
a
?
”

“That’s right.”
Eric
a had an odd feeling about the Turners. She’d only been dating Gregg a week and they knew so much about her. “Is there anything Gregg didn’t tell you
?
” she asked.

“Gregg doesn’t talk much. We can barely get a word out of him.”

Eric
a wondered how much
Boston
had changed him. The Gregg she knew could charm anyone. He was a strong manager and mentor, far from the shy kid Sue described. “He’s told you plenty about me.”

“We’ve never seen him so taken with a woman before,” Sue said.

“Can’t say as I blame him,” Frank added.

Eric
a blushed for the second time in an hour.

Gregg avoided her eyes.

“So what embarrassing childhood stories can you tell me
?
Is there anything I need to know before things go too far
?
”

Gregg’s eyes dropped to his plate.

Rick and Tom straightened in their chairs, eager for a laugh at their brother’s expense.

Frank started them off with a story everyone but
Eric
a had heard at least twenty times. “Gregg is quite a golfer. You see those two trophies there behind Sue
?
” Frank pointed proudly at two matching gold men golfing atop glittering, sixteen-inch platforms. “Gregg and I won the local four-ball together. It’s the biggest tournament our course has – mind you we don’t have much time to practice in summer. Three years ago, we came to the last hole of the championship match tied. I lost my ball so it was all up to Gregg. He hit two huge shots. The second one landed on the green.”

Rick gestured impatiently. “Yeah, yeah. He hit the green in two and made an eagle putt to win the tournament. I think the putt gets longer every year. How long was it again
?
Forty feet
?
”