The Christmas Table (Christmas Hope #10) - Donna VanLiere Page 0,3

away. “Yeah. Isn’t that strange?”

Andrea smiles. “Not really.”

THREE

May 1972

Joan retrieves a stack of recipe cards from a drawer in the kitchen and sits down at the Formica kitchen table. Her mother handed these cards to her just weeks before her wedding to John. “If you can follow the steps of a recipe,” her mom said, “you can make anything.” Joan’s trouble was following the steps; she usually managed to make a blunder and the recipe never turned out like her mom’s. Her mom, Alice, had written down her favorite tried-and-true recipes and the ones that Joan loved the most as a child growing up. Joan wanted to be a good cook like her mom but had resorted to quick and easy meals each evening. She thumbs through the recipe cards, thinking that if John is determined to make a beautiful table for the holiday season, then she is also determined to put a beautiful meal on it. She stops at a card that reads “Hummingbird Cake.” She used to love it when her mom made this cake but has been afraid to try it on her own, reasoning there are too many ingredients. She scans over them, reading her mom’s notes beside some of the ingredients:

3 large, room-temperature eggs. Put them in some warm water for a few minutes if they’re right out of the fridge.

2 teaspoons vanilla. Pay the extra money for the real stuff!

4 to 6 bananas. Roast them in the oven for best flavor! And keep the peels on! You need two cups.

1 cup pineapple. Buy a fresh one. Don’t waste your time with that canned stuff!

2 cups roasted pecans. Let them roast a few minutes in the oven to bring out their best flavor! One cup is for the frosting.

Joan groans looking at all the extra steps her mother did: roasting bananas and pecans and cutting a fresh pineapple! She walks to the phone on the kitchen wall and dials her mom’s number. “Mom! I’m going to make a hummingbird cake today.”

“Really? Is it the recipe I gave you?” Alice asks.

Joan can imagine the excitement her mother must feel right now. Joan has never been anything close to the cook that her mother is and has rarely shown an interest in cooking. “Yep, your recipe, but good grief! Is all this roasting really going to make that big of a difference?”

“I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about adding just a little bit of heat to those bananas and pecans that brings out the best flavor!”

Joan sighs. She’s stuck with roasting. “I’ve never even bought a pineapple in my life, let alone cut one” she says. Her mom laughs, talks her through it, and then says, “Can I talk with my grandbabies?”

Joan leans down, looking at Christopher. “You don’t want a hummingbird cake for dessert, do you?” she asks, handing him the phone.

“I do!” Gigi says, making the toy car she’s been playing with fly through the air. “If hummingbirds love it, then I will, too!”

“Then you’ll help me make it?”

Gigi leaps into the air, holding the car like a rocket ship. “Yes!”

Joan chuckles. “Then say hello to Grandma and let’s go to the grocery store. We’ve got a lot of things to buy.”

May 2012

Heddy Gregory sits at a wooden desk with its too-worn top etched with jagged scars and stained with blotches of purple-black ink, and fills out paperwork for a new child at Glory’s Place. This is the same paperwork and the same desk she has used year after year, but today when she presses a ballpoint pen down onto the information sheet, a leg on the desk collapses, making Heddy and the mother of the child gasp together. “Oh, my word!” Heddy says, grabbing the pictures of the children on top of the desk before they fall but letting the cup of pens crash to the floor.

Gloria pops her head out of her office at the commotion. “What’s going on?”

“Apparently Dalton did not fix this leg!”

Hearing his name, Dalton walks across the big room and looks at the desk. “What’d you do, Heddy?” he says, winking at Gloria.

“The question is, what didn’t you do?” Heddy says, leading the mother into the office to finish the paperwork.

“There’s not much that I can do for this leg,” Dalton says to Gloria. “It needs a new one. Do you want me to get it to Larry?”

Gloria shakes her head. “Larry would charge us twice what we paid for it.”

“What did you pay for it?”

“Nothing.