“Don’t you fucking dare.”
“Watch your mouth,” Thelma said.
“Yeah, watch your mouth, sport. I could be your stepmom someday.”
Gretchen ducked out of Robbie’s way as he attempted to smack her hand off him. Megan swept in and begged Gretchen to come check something out down by the mailboxes. That was Thelma’s cue to approach her son and say, “Guess your little blowup at Gretchen the other day worked. We’ve been talking things out.”
“Yeah, well, just keep the kissing to a minimum. It’s gross.”
Thelma raised her eyebrows.
“Not because you’re two girls! Because you’re my mom!”
She rolled her eyes as he apologized. “Come on,” she said, motioning him inside Gretchen’s house. “I’m going to get some cookies to take with us. For the restaurant staff.”
“Is that something they did in the ‘50s?” Megan asked, following them in.
“Not necessarily,” Thelma said over her shoulder. “It’s just the polite thing to do! These people areservingus food on Christmas!Christmas!”
“I don’t think they see it that way,” Gretchen informed her as Thelma dug around for a Ziploc bag. “If anything, they’re stoked to cook for people celebrating a holiday that they don’t.”
“You don’t know that for sure!”
“Man…” Megan folded over one of Gretchen’s kitchen chairs. “I’m soooo hungry. I’m going to eat a whole thing of shrimp fried rice by myself.”
“That sounds lovely!”
“Okay, Thel, you can have some too.”
Megan and Gretchen went out ahead of them, the latter tossing Thelma the housekeys as Megan went to start the SUV. As Thelma finished piling up the cookies on a red platter, thinking how much nicer they would look on her Scarlet Fiesta chop plate that she had treated herself to that Christmas season, Robbie helped himself to one.
“How is it?” Thelma asked her son. “It’s the same recipe I’ve had in my head since 1942. Before the rationing really took hold on Christmas dinner.”
He broke it in half and handed some to her. “Just like old times,” he said.
It was one of the warmest things he had ever said to her.The finest present he could give me.As they both took bites out of their cookie halves, Robbie escorted his mother out of the house, where she turned off most of the lights and locked Gretchen’s front door.
Soon, she was the only one not in the car.
She glanced up at the cloudy sky and took in the Los Angeles ambiance on a cool Christmas day. “Happy holidays,” she said to the angels looking down at her. “Here’s to many more.”
As Megan honked the horn at her, Thelma jogged to the backseat of the SUV and joined Gretchen. In unison, they all reminded her to buckle her seatbelt as Megan attempted to back out into the street.
Indeed, some things never changed. And the oldest habits?Always the hardest to break.
Chapter twenty-four
The Funeral of Thelma Van der Graaf
On the first anniversary of her arrival in 2018, Thelma stood in that quaint, out-of-the-way cemetery once again.
This time, for a very different purpose.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Jed from group said at the front of a small crowd, “we are here today for a very noble purpose. Something many of us have experienced as a process for moving beyond our experiences and taking back our lives. A funeral!”
Minor applause erupted from one side of the crowd to the other. Thelma stood in the center of them, trying to eschew shyness.
“It’s for this momentous occasion,” Jed continued, “that I want to make it clear that the Thelma standing among us today is very much alive and well. So much so that we get to be part of this rite of passage in every chrononaut’s healing journey.”
