Web of Angels by Lilian Nattel

Author:Lilian Nattel [Nattel, Lilian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary
ISBN: 9780307402103
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

For Easter and Passover, Sharon had put flowers, chocolate and matzo on the table, as well as glazed carrots, potatoes, a roast, tofu and a mixed green salad with bok choy, but no rice. The leaf was in the blue table to make room for Ingrid and Amy, while the kids crowded around the folding table. The spring bouquet that Amy had brought was on the counter in the vase that Josh had made out of a jar for Mother’s Day when he was ten.

Ingrid had insisted on contributing to the meal, and had delivered the venison, which Sharon had cooked. Compliments were exchanged for the cooking, for the meat, Dan thanking Ingrid while looking down the table at Sharon and smiling happily. His house smelled just right: gravy, baking, flowers. He wore the log cabin sweater she’d knit for him, she wore her shift dress and the jade heart he’d given her for their first anniversary. It was the only jewellery she’d ever wanted though he thought she deserved more. Everyone was dressed up. Even Bram wore a jacket, though not a tie. He dug into the roast venison and potatoes with good spirit.

“Where’s the rice?” Mimi asked. As her husband had gained a little weight, she was willing to put a sliver of roast beside the prescribed vegetarian fare on his plate, but it wasn’t a meal without rice. She was sitting in her usual place beside him on Sharon’s left, opposite her daughter and her daughter’s husband, the other guests seated at the end near Dan.

“I thought potatoes would be a nice change,” Sharon said. There was nothing to be gained in arguing with a force of nature. Better to be a reed, bending with the gale force wind, letting the rains wash over. For example: the dining room was still a mess, and though Sharon couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d lost something in there, she didn’t react to her mother-in-law’s clucks and tsks. Nor did she take offence when Mimi saw the table set for five kids. Mimi had plenty to say about that and Sharon let her say it all again. Josh was too young for a girlfriend. They didn’t match. He was dark and she was blonde. (Sharon didn’t interrupt to point out that she was ginger and Dan dark, or that Eleanor was big and her husband slender.) Mimi went on and on: the tangerine looks gold on the outside but is rotten inside. She didn’t come from good stock; her sister had committed suicide. If the wind blows from an empty cave it’s not without a reason. The girl should be at home with her parents. Holidays were for families. Only at the end, when her mother-in-law’s arguments were exhausted, Sharon had said that Cathy’s family wasn’t in a holiday mood so wasn’t it nice that they were letting her spend the evening here?

“The five grains are more precious than jade or pearls and number one is rice.” On the word “rice,” Mimi clapped her hands together.

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