She pointed to the wedding photograph of John Charles Jenkins and Eleanor Anne Newton, the date in an ornamental garland at the top. Then to a family picture, taken shortly before Wes and Lena married, the two of them standing in back, one on each side of their sister Mary Jo, who had been left up-time, with their parents sitting in front, drawing the downward slant from Wes' height to Chad's, the shape of each face and hairline, on the glass with her fingernail. "Where did Wesley come from?"
Chad looked at her, considering what he should say. Fresh eyes . . .
"Never mind," she added, before he had said anything. "It makes no difference."
"Things happen," he said. "Dad did the right thing."
Clara, he decided, was not only "okay" but also no slouch.
She was looking at Wes' and Lena's wedding photo now, then one with Lenore about ten and Chandra about eight, both long legged and gawky. "Those little apples did not fall very far from the tree," she commented.
"I expect that Wes has copies of most of those newer ones. You'll have to ask him to dig out the albums."
"I wish that Lenore could have come today," Eleanor Jenkins said.
"Too many places for her to be, Gran," Missy said. "Bryant wrote her. The letter made a fuss that she should have noon dinner with his sister Lola, and then the Days wanted her and Weshelle for supper. Maybe she can run in here for an hour or so between two Thanksgiving dinners, the way Chandra is going to do for the Pricketts, before she goes to the Days'. Well, Chandra's really going over to David Jones' house, since Nathan's mom is Mr. Jones' sister and they're having Thanksgiving there. I can phone Lenore at Lola's and ask, but I wouldn't count on her being able to get away soon enough."
"Jasper Day isn't even in town. He's up in Magdeburg, still, so she doesn't have grandparents there. Believe me, at Thanksgiving a grandmother outranks three aunts. If she had to be at Lola's for dinner, she could have dropped in on the Days this afternoon and come here for leftovers for supper." Eleanor's voice was very firm.
"They guilt-trip her, Grandma. Because Aunt Lena and Sarah and Diana and Di's girls had gone to the movies together and were left up-time, now Janice and Nell and Cassandra are putting pressure on Chandra and Lenore and Sarah's kids to hang tight with them as a family group. Which goes triple now that Ed Monroe and Chauncey Wilson as well as Uncle Wes have all remarried. Plus, they're pushing even harder since Janice and Ross adopted five kids and Nell and Fenton have adopted two kids. Replacements for the ones they lost. They're trying to focus on them, I guess. Bonding and all that kind of stuff. Make them feel that they are really part of the family. Plus, with Cassie remarrying to a German guy this month and bringing in three stepchildren . . . and the Nazarenes lost almost their whole church congregation and their minister. The Days were hit really hard by the Ring of Fire."
"You're sounding very grown up, littlest granddaughter."
"Teacher training. Child psychology as well as library science. I'm not 'littlest' any more, really," Missy said. "You'll have to promote one of the great-granddaughters to spoil in that spot. Or leave it vacant for a while, considering that Chandra's girls are twins, which might cause sibling rivalry. Wait and see what Chip and Katerina produce once they get themselves organized."
"Missy, where are you going?" Debbie hurried out into the hall.
"Home. Gran brought up 'good bourgeois' and started saying things about Ron's dad. He and Gerry left."
Debbie winced. Her mother-in-law's talent for disguising catty remarks as polite comments was one of the banes of her life. It occurred to her that Ron Stone might not be so bad to have around if he had an antenna that picked it up too.
"I'm sorry, hon. But you can't go straight home. You've got to stop by Aura Lee's. You can't not go see Nani and Pop on Thanksgiving. Everyone's feelings will be hurt if you don't."
"Sometimes," Missy said. "Sometimes I wish that people would collect all the things they get hurt feelings about and put them out in a garbage can."
"Sorry I put you through that," Ron said, lounging on his dad's favorite bean bag chair.
"No problem," Gerry answered. "Dinners like that are part of what pastors have to learn to do."
Ron stared a minute. More alien than Mork from Ork.
Then he got up and looked in the mirror. Missy. Miss Utterly Bourgeois. That meant that she knew, without thinking about it, where her body, her face, her hair, every bit of her, came from. What did he know about himself? Looking at his reflection, he had to admit that it would probably have been sort of hard to tell the origin of any of the component parts, even if he had known his mother at all and his father for sure, given how . . . average . . . the whole ensemble was that looked back at him.