An Independent Woman Read Free Page B

large fireplace, cold now that it was summer. The dining table was a bit more than twelve feet in length, the top made of a single redwood plank. It was an old table that had been there when Jake bought the place, and it had been waxed and polished through the years to the point where it shone like a gleaming stone. It stood lengthwise in the room, and on the side opposite the fireplace were cupboards for dishes and an iron band of hooks from which pots and pans hung.
    Adam, white bearded, with a shock of white hair still thick, sat at the head of the table, Barbara on one side of him, Eloise on the other; and down the table toward Freddie, who presided over the opposite end, were Barbara’s son, Sam, and his wife, Mary Lou; Sally and her husband, Joe Lavette, who practiced medicine in Napa; and their son and daughter, May Ling and Daniel Lavette. Freddie had once married and divorced May Ling, and now, having ended his relationship with Carla, Candido’s daughter, he was wooing May Ling, as Barbara saw it, like a rejected puppy.
    Once, in writing about her family and its intertwining, over the many decades of Highgate, she had faced their tangle of relationships in despair. Now, sitting at dinner with the people she knew and loved best, she was filled with guilt. Carson was dead, his body scarcely cold in the grave, and here she was, engulfed in sympathy and love.
    Eloise, responding to Barbara’s gloom, said, “Darling, my mother was Irish and my dad was part Irish, and the wake goes way back into time, and I used to think that the Irish were barbarians to carry on that way, but this is a celebration for the living, not for the dead. The dead will go their way and we will go ours.”
    Meanwhile, now that she had finished filling the goblets with wine, Cathrena was stirring the steaming pots on the stove; and up and down the table, matches were struck to light the six thick candles that sat in hammered silver bases. Adam lit the last candle, and each at the table reached for the hands nearest, and Adam said, “For food of the earth and the fruit of the vines, we thank thee.” The invocation was always the same and had been for as long as Barbara could remember, all the time back to when Jake Levy had sat at the head of the table. Her eyes filled with tears and she covered her face with her hands. Cathrena brought platters of hot tortillas and baskets of bread to the table.
    â€œWe’ll drink a toast to Carson,” Eloise said, raising her goblet. “May he rest in peace and always be remembered.”
    There was a roast shoulder of fresh ham, bowls of potatoes and turnips and carrots, a baked salmon for those who did not eat red meat, platters of sliced tomato and onion, and Mexican beans refritos. The bread was home baked, and except for the salmon, all of the food was raised at Highgate.
    Aside from a few bites of the toast at breakfast, Barbara had not eaten all day. After the first bite, she found herself stuffing her stomach with food. The Cabernet kept coming, and after the meat and the salad and the apple pie for dessert, she could barely keep her eyes open.
    â€œI think you have to sleep,” Eloise said, and though Barbara protested, Eloise rose and took her by the arm and led her upstairs to her room.
    It was always the same small room on the second floor of the big stone-and-redwood house, the dolls and dollhouse still there, things that Dan Lavette had bought for her on the occasions when both of them slipped away to Highgate, on days when his wife, Jean, had other things to do. Now Barbara was half-asleep, full of good food and wine. Eloise helped her to undress, tucked her into bed, and she was asleep almost instantly.
    When Eloise returned to the kitchen, there was a flood of questions about Barbara: How was she, and what would she do now without the column that had meant so much to her? It was the first time in months that the whole family had gathered together at the