Black Friday

Tears were in my eyes now. I hugged her tighter.

"Hush now. I'm the one that got smiled on. Now go to sleep. There's a lot I want to get done tomorrow."

Her hand went South.

"You're going to sleep in tomorrow, because I plan on keeping you up a little longer."

Wow. Twice in one night. We hadn't done that since six months after our honeymoon.

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I planted a garden, something I had always wanted to do. Beans, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash. Debbie wasn't really interested until things were ready to harvest. Then she started realizing the possibilities, which led to her taking canning classes through the local extension office and shopping for a freezer. We had so much we gave some away, endearing us to the neighbors and family.

It seemed a waste to let our field lie idle, and I dragged Debbie along to a small acreage seminar. We were amazed at the possibilities.

I found an old Ford 8N tractor that needed a little work and rebuilt it over the winter. We scrounged want ads and auctions until we had enough equipment, and that spring we broke ground. She wasn't as committed as I was, but she enjoyed driving the tractor.

Then again, she had her own interests. She had one of the bedrooms finished without carpet, opting for a tiled floor. She made it into a sewing room. I teased her about her Woman Cave, but she was an excellent seamstress. Her specialty was quilts.

They weren't just quilts, they were works of art in fabric. Most were traditional patterns, but occasionally she did something that stood out. She belonged to a quilters guild, and regularly won at shows. I thought it was just fun until I found out she could get over three hundred dollars for some of her creations.

In fact, a quilt bonded my first daughter Amy to her. She had been at the wedding, and they got along. She had married. I didn't really like him that much, but he seemed to make her happy. I really like my grandson, though. He was named for me and his father. He was two years old and a bundle of energy. We got to keep him about once a month while they enjoyed adult time. I was a little worried about Debbie, but she adored little Frank, and he followed her around like a puppy.

She seemed nervous. Amy didn't know about the quilts, and she had made one for her, and one for the baby.

"Amy, can I show you something?"

"Sure, Debbie. What has Dad grown this time?"

She was laughing. I had gotten into growing exotic vegetables and fruits.

She was speechless when Debbie unrolled the first quilt. An Ohio Star pattern, bright colors standing out from a muted background. She laughed when she showed her the kid's quilt, sewn with Lego characters, one of little Frank's favorites. When she understood Debbie wanted to give them to her, she broke down and cried. They hugged and Debbie started crying. I took the baby outside to give them a moment.

When we got back inside they had calmed down, and were in an animated discussion over quilts. Seems I had just been replaced as a companion for quilt shows.

Jane came in just then, and the conversation started all over again. I left the baby and went outside to work on something, I just wasn't sure what just yet. Jane found me in the barn.

"I like her" she said. "I wish I had met her when I was younger, I could have used a big sister quite a few times."

She didn't know it, but Amy had followed her to tell me goodbye.

She felt her hug her from behind.

"We'll just have make up for lost time then, all right little sis?"

I swear to God, if they started crying I was going out into the woods.

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Jane graduated. Almost top of the class. She had already lined up a position in a local office.

We planned a big celebration at the house. Her friends, my family. our friends. I caught Amy looking a little sad.

"What's up, punkin?" I said, hugging her.

She sighed.

"I love this" she said, waving her arms around at all the people gathered, "I just wish Mom had an extended family to share things with."

"She still has friends and family. Surely she's not alone. I know she was dating that accountant, is he still around?"

"No, they didn't last long. I don't think she wants a long term relationship. I think she's afraid she'll do to them what she did to you. You know it drives her crazy sometimes, trying to figure out what she was looking for. She spends a lot of time alone."

I was surprised. Since I had Debbie, I hardly thought of her any more, just a snippet now and then from Amy. It was like that life belonged to someone else, or I had seen it on a tv show.

I thought about it a lot. Talked it over with Debbie. We were having a Fourth of July cookout soon, so I took a chance.

To say she was surprised to see me at her door would not be overstating the obvious.

"Frank! Is something wrong? Is it Amy?"

She looked great. Still skinny, still obsessed with her weight. She was a blond now. It looked good on her.

"Calm down, Kim. Nothing is wrong. Amy is just fine. I wanted to talk to you. May I come in?"

She shook herself.

"Sorry. Please come in."

She gave me a cup of coffee. I noticed it was still terrible, she never did learn to make it right.

"I'm gonna come right out with it. Deb and I are having a cookout in three weeks, a Fourth of July celebration. Amy and most of my family will be there. We want you to come."

"Why?"

"Because you're Amy's mother. Because most of my family still likes you. I don't like what you did to me, Kim. It broke my heart. But you never lied to me, you never slipped around, and when you made your decision you looked me in the eye when you told me. I can respect that. The past is the past. Deb and I, and yes I talked to her before I came here, want you to be part of the family again. I'm firmly committed to her, we can never be more than friends, and that's all I'm offering. Think about it."

She started crying. I think I'm going to go into business. Maybe do an instructional video. "How To Make A Woman Cry, In Three Easy Lessons". I'll make a fortune.

When she stopped, she thanked me, said she'd be happy to attend, and kissed my cheek.

"I was a fool, Frank. Thank you."

................................................

She came out with Amy and her family. She wanted to hang back, but Amy had her by the hand, pulling her along.

My oldest sister came up. She was retired now, had four grandchildren from her two daughters. They were scampering about with the other kids. She put her hands on her hips and looked her over. Kim looked like she wanted to run away.

"So, a blonde, huh? That would explain a lot. Give me a hug, you skinny bitch." She was always known for her, uh, colorful language.

"Mom!" squealed Lori, "the kids can hear you. I'm having a tough time now as it is. Chasity asked me yesterday what a dumbass was. Behave."

June just laughed and hugged Kim.

"Bring her over, I'll introduce her to her aunt. Then she'll know."

Amy couldn't help it and started laughing. Soon half the family was giggling.

There was a moment of silence when Kim and Debbie crossed paths, but Debbie took her by the hand and led her over to a picnic table away from everyone. They talked for about fifteen minutes, and when they got up they hugged. You could almost hear everyone let out their breath.

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So now, instead of Amy having separate celebrations with me and her mother, she just drags Kim along and we have it just once. Debbie hadn't said much about her, but I came in one afternoon from my vegetable bed to see her, Kim, Amy, and Jane in her sewing room, tacking a quilt together, chattering comfortably. It felt so good seeing my family get along I went back out, so I didn't spoil the moment.

I had two acres under cultivation. It doesn't sound like much, but it's a lot for one or two people to handle. Debbie complained a couple of times about the time it took away from her sewing, but when I handed her the eight thousand we had made over the course of the season, she never said another word. She turned around and surprised me with a deposit slip for forty five hundred, the years' total from her quilt sales. We paid the house off five years early.

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The next year brought us a bad scare. I didn't feel particular keen, and went to see Jane in her office. She ran some tests and told me it would be a few days.

She called me, crying so bad I couldn't understand her. Finally one of the doctors took the phone.

"Frank, you need to come in. We've found something on the tests."

Lung cancer.

Two of the scariest words I had ever heard. I wondered where it came from, I had never smoked a day in my life. They think it might have been caused by some of the chemicals I was around when I was young. Luckily they caught it early.

I went into the hospital with a chorus of crying females. Debbie, Amy, Jane, my sisters, even Kim.

She gripped my hand tightly.

"Don't you dare die, asshole. Debbie would never make it without you."

One week later I went home, missing a third of my right lung. Subsequent tests all came back negative. I felt smothered from female attention for a long time.

It took a year to recover fully. I thought I wouldn't get to work my vegetable patch, but the whole family pitched in and it was even bigger than before. In thanks, we took the money, eleven thousand, and took the whole family on vacation.

We all went to Florida for two weeks. Me, Debbie, Amy, her husband Jack, Jane and her new husband Mark. Plus Kim and her new husband Jeremy. He was really nervous when he first met the family, but gradually relaxed, and a good time was had by all.

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I don't want you to get the wrong idea. If you put two people together for any length of time they're going to disagree on something. They were few and far between, but we fussed. Some were biggies. But we never went for a personal attack, and we always talked it out later.

Every once in a while she get wound up, point at a plaque on the wall, and say "Because I'm the queen! That's why."

Usually after that she would break up giggling, and the fuss would be over.

The plaque read: "Queen Debbie 1, ruler of this doublewide and of all its' minions".

It was a joke that started when a country singer had a hit, talking about his life and his loving wife, the queen of his doublewide. Amy heard it one day and broke up laughing.

"He's talking about you, Debbie. You are definitely the queen of this doublewide!"

Her birthday was the next week, and Amy had the plaque made as a gag gift. Debbie loved it so much she hung it prominently on the living room wall. We all agreed it was hilarious, and dead on.

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I woke up to find little Frank, six now, tugging on my sleeve.

"Wake up, Pop. Time for breakfast."

I got up, stumbling to the kitchen. Kirsten, my thirteen year old great niece, was mixing up pancake batter. Allie, eleven, another great niece, was breaking eggs into a bowl. Nine year old Amber was was setting the table, while six year old Julie was trying to help. Did I mention my family ran to girls? I was babysitting them all while moms and grandmoms shopped.

The older girls spent the night in Jane's old room. Julie and Frank slept on the inflatable air mattress in the sewing room. They were well rested and eager to start their day.

I helped, and soon they were eating, chattering happily about what was going to happen after breakfast.

It was another family tradition that had started three years ago with Kirsten and Allie. I was babysitting them on weekend, and they were helping me pick up pecans for their moms and their friends. Remember the pecan trees? That year was tremendous, pecan literally carpeted the ground. I had the county extension agent out to look at them. He said they were most likely a variety called Stewarts, and were probably about fifty years old.

We picked up way too many. I gave some away at work, and one lady told me they were going for five dollars a pound in the stores. Kirsten was ten, and wanted to make some money to buy Christmas presents on her own, and something clicked in my head. The next week we picked up five bushels. We then inspected them, threw out the bad ones, took my vegetable scales and separated them into one pound bags. I put a little ad in the local papers, listing them for two fifty a pound. We had over a hundred pounds. I thought she might make twenty or thirty dollars. They sold out in three hours. She paid me back for the ad, and still had two hundred forty dollars. People were asking if we would have some available the next week.

We had a gimmick. We sold out of a miniature buckboard I had built. It was pulled by Jenny, my Jennie.

Jennie was a female donkey. That was the common term for them, so that's what I called her. I got her when a friend of mine called who helped an animal rescue group. He wanted to put her up in my barn for a few days while they found her a home. She had been taken form a farm where she and all the other animals were abused pretty badly. Some died. She could hardly walk when he delivered her, and snapped at anyone who tried to get close to her.

I fixed the fence after a few days so she could get out in the sun. It took her two days before she came out of the stall. I would make sure she had water and some occasional feed, pasturage is actually all a donkey needs. The feed and an occasional apple and carrot were treats. It was three months before she stopped trying to bite me if I got too close, another six before she would take an apple from my hand. In a year she would charge the fence when I came out, braying for a treat.

I started putting a halter and a lead on her. Soon she would follow me around in the yard and garden. My friend told me she had been trained to pull a wagon, so I built one her size, for fun. When I called, she would grab her harness off the pegs in the barn and bring it to me. I used her to bring in the veggies as I harvested. Had to watch her around the carrots, but otherwise she didn't bother anything.

I knew she would be fine when little Frank was four, and he wandered into the pasture when I wasn't looking. He was intent on making friends with Jennie. I saw him, and was running as fast as a fat old man could, calling out to Jenny, trying to keep her calm. She sniffed him pretty good. Satisfied that he smelled enough like me to do her no harm, she picked him up by the collar of his shirt, calmly walked over and deposited him in front of me.

The look in her eye seemed to say "I don't babysit!" as she turned her back and ambled over to her feed stand. She really liked Kirsten, who made it a point to fuss over her and give her treats every time she came out. I let her drive the buckboard the first time I hitched Jenny up, holding a long lead, just in case. I didn't need it. I taught Kirsten how to hitch her up, and every time the kids were there at the same time, she had to hitch her up for a ride. She seemed the natural choice when the pecan business came up.

Jenny was just the start of our animal collection. The garden attracted rodents, so I got a couple of cats for the barn. Debbie immediately started feeding them and soon had petted them to the point they wanted to stay in the house, pretty much destroying their usefulness as mousers. My friend brought me a dog in need of rescue. It was a Great Pyrenee, a huge dog known for his faithfulness and guarding abilities. He came in handy, keeping varmits away from the chickens Debbie had to have, a breed that laid colored eggs, usually pastel blues and greens. The kids loved gathering eggs.

Next he brought me a female llama, that I immediately named Dolly. I was a little afraid of the interaction between Dolly and Jenny, but they seemed to hit it off, to the point where they slept in the same stall. Dolly didn't like Pete the dog, though, spitting on him every time he got too close. He learned to keep his distance. I was researching packs. I wanted to make one and bring her into the pecan business, another gimmick.

Soon it was a tradition, and people would wait for us every year. As the other kids got older, it became a group effort, with each child getting a cut, usually depending on age. But unless they helped, they didn't get to sell. It taught them some valuable life lessons.

This was a particularly good year. Seven hundred pounds, picked up over three weekends.

Allie was good at math, so she handled the money. Kirsten got the order together, very few bought just one pound. Amber would bag it, and Julie and Frank took turns delivering them. That way everyone worked, according to their talents and age. Jenny just stood and looked bored.

They sold six hundred pounds in four hours. I left them alone, but kept a close eye on them. These are troubled times, after all. When they were done, they had fifteen hundred dollars.

Kirsten got five, Allie got four, June got three, and the two small ones got a hundred fifty apiece. They were all very pleased. Since most of it was ones and fives, it looked like quite a lot, especially to six year old eyes.

Of course, seven hundred pounds was probably less than a fourth of the output of thirteen healthy pecan trees. Deb and I talked about it, and set three trees aside for family and sales, and donated the rest to our church. They would show up two successive Saturdays, usually at least twenty. We made a big thing of it, furnishing sandwiches and drinks, and helping. Usually the men picked up while the women graded, getting rid of the bad ones. Again, they would be weighed into one pound bags and sold, the proceeds going to whatever project that needed the most help. On good years it would be close to a ton, on bad less than a thousand, but it still was a good bit.

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The girls finally dragged back in. They looked thoroughly worn out. Looking at the minivan and the SUV they had taken, I could tell they were stuffed to the gills.

Flopping on whatever furniture was available, they kicked off shoes, loosened clothing, and sighed or moaned, depending on age and stamina.

Nobody pretended to cook. I ordered pizza. Amy moaned about how much money she had spent, and little Frank crawled up into her lap.

"You can have my money, Mommy," he said, showing her his bag. A hundred fifty looks like a lot when it's all ones. She hugged him.

"Thanks baby. But I'm all right. This is your money. You earned it. Next week we'll go Christmas shopping and I'll let you spend some of it. Okay?"

"Okay," he said happily, squirming off her lap to get a slice of pizza.

Soon they started leaving. Another round of kissing cheeks, and they were gone, leaving me, Debbie, and the kids, who wanted to pick up more pecans in the morning and sell them in the afternoon. Everyone was pretty much worn out so we went to bed fairly early.

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Something didn't feel right. It took me a minute to realize I was in bed alone. I got up, surprised to find a crying Debbie in the living room, looking at pictures of Jane as a child. I immediately suspected the worst.

"What's wrong? Are you sick?"

She looked up at me and smiled.

"Not at all. Jane told me a secret today. We're going to be grandparents again in seven months. She told us in the van. We almost turned around and came back home."

I hugged her, hard. I was very happy.

"Then why are you crying?"

"Because Jane told Amy she was really sorry she had a boy before her[yes, it was a boy]because she had always sworn her first boy would be named for you. She and Amy hugged and whispered, then announced that could never be enough Franks in the world, so her son would also be Frank. They decided since Amy's Frank was oldest, he would always be known as Big Frank, Jane's would be forever known to the family as Little Frank. How does that make you feel, honey?"