Cold Comfort Read Free Page B

amount of food I’d picked up for her, along with a host of ingredients she had already socked away in her freezer and pantry, she was expecting a huge crowd. In the old days, when all the relatives were still alive and not scattered around the country—with growing families of their own—that was the case. But these days, family, on the local level, had dwindled to just Minnie and me. That didn’t daunt her from making our traditional Thanksgiving dinner just as it used to be. This included setting the table with her best linen, china, crystal and silver and even arranging a floral horn-of-plenty, bursting brightly with asters and mums.
    “There’s no need to go to all this trouble,” I’d told her. “I’d be just as happy with take-out on paper plates.”
    “That’s life for you every day. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. Whether it’s two or twenty-five people at our table, it’s important to keep traditions alive.”
    “But you really don’t need to stand on ceremony—not for me.”
    “Anna Maria, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to do all this. So as long as God continues to provide me with good health, I want the holidays to be as special as always.”
    I didn’t stop her, as food seemed Minnie’s most effective and satisfying way to express herself. It always had been. She wasn’t deep or intellectual by any measure. By that I mean, she never read the classics (outside of Gone with the Wind ) or had a fondness for opera (Frank Sinatra was more her style); she never wanted to talk politics or current events (outside of entertainment news and tidbits of local gossip); and she was never the type to bare the burdens of her soul. She rarely, if ever, gave voice to the losses she’d sustained in her life, and I knew better than to remind her of them. Atop the embroidered doily on the dresser in her bedroom were framed photographs of her mother and father on their wedding day and a few pictures of her and her now passed siblings from their childhoods. Next to the bed, on her nightstand, stood a small, faded sepia-toned portrait of a good-looking man, a soldier in full military garb, arms wrapped around a beautiful, beaming teenaged Aunt Minnie. Dog tags were draped over the corner of the frame.
    It was clear this man was the love of Minnie’s life. When I was kid, I’d heard talk that he was her fiancé who’d died in the war.
    Minnie never married. And my aunt wasn’t the type to dwell or be downtrodden. She barreled on through, as life for her was about doing, not thinking. Gotta keep movin’ was her favorite expression. And working in the kitchen always seemed the perfect means for her to achieve that goal. Adjusting the gas on the stove and cutting and peeling vegetables was her concept of psychotherapy.
    That afternoon, as she sat at the kitchen table and ripped up pieces of bread that she would use to stuff the bird the next day, I had a hunch that Minnie wasn’t really working alone. In her memory, I imagined she was resurrecting all the Thanksgivings and traditions that came before. By doing so, she wasn’t making dinner for just the two of us. She was honoring all the folks who had once enriched her life and mine, those who had come and gone, passing through this world before moving on to the next. Her efforts, in and of themselves, seemed an act of prayer and gratitude.
    I was never a cook, outside of popping leftovers and prepackaged frozen dinners into a microwave, but I did what I could to help—mostly washing, drying and putting away an endless stream of dishes, pots and pans. One year on my birthday, Minnie, as a gag gift, wrapped up one of her three-by-five recipe cards jotted with directions for how to make a hard-boiled egg. I was essentially a kitchen and culinary illiterate and had no desire to further that line of education.
    Maybe that’s why I was so intrigued, watching the effort she put forth into fussing over the broth and the tiny meatballs for her Italian