I do not own the show GRAVITY FALLS or any of the characters; both are the property of the Walt Disney Company and of Alex Hirsch. I make no money from these stories but write just for fun and in the hope that other fans enjoy reading them. I will ask, please, do not copy my stories elsewhere on the Internet. I work hard on these, and they mean a lot to me. Thank you.
Melancholy Thanksgiving
(November 2016)
1
What was that about best-laid plans and men and mice? Robert Burns or somebody? Anyway, that November, things did not go as planned.
The Pines twins—Stanford and Stanley, that is—had invited the whole family to come up to Oregon for Thanksgiving, and Alex and Wanda had accepted the invitation. Dipper and Wendy face-timed and made plans, and you can bet that Mabel and Teek did the same.
It looked as if Dipper and Mabel's family could take the entire week—a nice break in the school year—and they got almost as excited as they used to get about Christmas. Dipper planned to take a copy of the manuscript of his newest book up to give to Wendy. Mabel was knitting matching sweaters for her and Teek. Even the dog, Tripper, seemed unusually excited, as if he sensed something joyous was coming up soon.
The big day had been set for Sunday, November 20—get up before the sun, load the RAV4, and take off on the long drive. Dipper was already packed. Mabel had already packed and unpacked and repacked twice.
However on November 17, one week before Thanksgiving, things changed. It had been a cool, windy day in Piedmont, one of those days with a moderate humidity and a high in the sixties that made track practice feel good. Dad came home from work in a happy mood, Mom made carne asada tacos—one of Dad's favorites—for dinner, with sides of guacamole, Mexican slaw, and corn on the cob, and flan for dessert.
Abuelita was still the benchmark chef for Mexican specialties, but as Mabel said, nobody could touch Mom for MexiCal cuisine. They gathered around the dinner table at seven—it was just full dark outside—when the phone rang.
Alex Pines pushed back from the table. "Always at dinnertime!" he said, but he grabbed the phone from the counter and stepped out into the living room to answer it. Dipper heard him say, "Pines residence . . . yes, speaking . . . What? What is it? Oh, no. I just spoke—when?"
Dipper and Mabel looked at each other, both with the certain knowledge that this wasn't the good kind of phone call.
Alex's voice sounded tight and tense: "Yes, I—I'll come out. That's right, California. She did? Yes—yes, if that's what she wanted, that's . . . yes, do it. Well—I'll have to call you back . . . that should be all right. No, I—thank you. Wait, let me write that down—" he stepped back into the dining room and snatched the grocery-list pad and clicked his pen. "Go ahead. Silberman and Sons, 72nd Avenue, Hollywood, Florida, got it. Do you have their number? Thank you . . . . Yes, tomorrow. OK, and your number? Yes, I'll be there tomorrow. Thank you."
He hung up and stood for a moment facing away from them, slumping. Then he turned, pale and drawn, and said quietly, "Mom died a few minutes ago."
"Oh, Alex," Wanda said, rising to go to him and hug him.
Alex said numbly, "I talked to her on the phone last Sunday, like usual, and she seemed fine. That was Mr. Brightwell from her assisted-living apartment house. He, um, says she didn't come down for dinner, and when a residential assistant checked on her, she was napping. The woman says she was sleeping normally then. They thought they'd give her a couple of hours—the residents can order special meals if they miss the regular ones—but the lady went back and—Mom was gone. The staff doctor came up and said it had happened within the last five minutes. He thinks a heart attack."
"Grandmom's dead?" Mabel asked, her eyes spilling tears.
Dipper felt odd. A little dazed. The younger twins had hardly known their grandmother. Her husband, Sherman Pines, had died only a few months after they were born, and shortly after that, Monica, his wife, had sold their house and business and had moved to Florida. Dipper could remember their going to visit her for a week one summer when he and Mabel were, what, seven or eight years old? He felt guilty, but he remembered Disney World a little better than he did his grandmother. She was . . . not a typical Nana. Not doting at all. Polite, but sort of cool and distant.
Dad said that's just the way she was. He'd told them once, "She had a hard time when I was born. She wasn't a bad mother, but—I think she just never warmed to me the way most mothers do to their kids. It's OK. She and Dad always put food on the table, and they made sure that I had a good education."
Now he looked a little lost. He ran his hands through his hair—like all the Pineses, he had that little twin floof at the back of his head. "I've got to fly out," he said. "She, uh, she left a will. The assisted-living place will take care of boxing up her effects and shipping them to us. Um, a little money's also coming to me from the insurance. She made arrangements out there for—what she wanted. Her will directed, um, that she be cremated, and she's asked for her ashes to be buried next to Dad."
"When are you going?" Mabel asked.
"Got to leave tonight," he said. He smiled weakly. "We ought to get this done before sunset tomorrow. Jewish tradition. Son, I'm a little rattled. Could you see if you can find an airline connection I might make?"
"Sure, Dad," Dipper said. "I'm sorry."
"Well—she was a very private kind of person," Alex said. "Even with me. But God rest her soul."
Mabel said, "I'll call Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford."
Alex touched his forehead. "Oh, of course—thank you, Mabel. I'm not thinking clearly."
Dipper went to Dad's computer and looked at the various flights. His dad hurried upstairs, quickly packed an overnight bag, and then came into the home office. "Any luck?" he asked, leaning on the back of his chair.
Dipper shrugged. "OK, you can probably get this one if you leave right now—it takes off from Oakland at 9:15, but it arrives in Orlando at 7:35 tomorrow morning because of the time difference. But the problem's getting back. There's no way you can make it back before sunset tomorrow."
"Well, in cases of a death in the family, the rules are flexible about the Sabbath," Alex said. He thought for a minute. "What if I stayed over for Friday night? I'm Reform, much as I'm anything, so I don't mind traveling on a Saturday. And Mom wasn't Jewish, except by conversion. See what's possible."
Dipper said, "I already have. Uh, I don't know if it would make you feel better, but here's a flight that leaves Orlando at 5:35 p.m. on Saturday. There's a short layover in Salt Lake City, but you'd get back to Oakland at 11:40 p.m."
Dad patted his shoulder. "So I'd be traveling after sunset on Saturday," he said. "Thank you for thinking of that, Mason. It's a kind gesture. And it will give me Friday and Saturday to take care of things. See if both flights have a seat."
They both did, Dad sat down and booked them with his credit card, and then he said, "Wanda, will you drive me to—oh." His wife stood there with the car keys in her hand. He picked up his overnight case. "Will you kids be all right until—of course you will. You're not six any longer."
The printer was spitting out pages. "Here you go, Dad," Dipper said, folding them and putting them in an envelope. "Your tickets."
"Wow, I've got to clear my head," Alex said, trying to smile.
Mabel urged, "You didn't even finish one taco. Get some snacks in the airport. Your blood sugar's probably low!"
He nodded, impulsively hugged both Dipper and Mabel, and then said, "Better get on the road if I'm going to make that flight."
Dipper and Mabel watched them drive away. "Is this gonna screw up our Thanksgiving?" Mabel asked.
"Mabel!" Dipper said.
She shrugged. "Well—I'm sad that Grandmom's gone, but we barely knew her."
The house phone rang, and Dipper went back to answer it. It was Grunkle Stan. "Hi, Dipper," he said, a little softer than his normal boisterous tone. "Alex there?"
"He's gone to the airport," Dipper said. "He's flying out to bring Grandmom Monica's ashes home."
"Ashes, huh?" Stan asked. "Well, I'd never go that route, but I bet that's what she wanted."
"Yeah," Dipper said. "She left a will that specified everything."
"So what's our plan?" Stan asked.
"Um, Dad's going to go wrap up things out in Winter Park, and then he'll fly back home late Saturday night. He'll get in not long before midnight."
"Then the services will be Sunday," Stanley said. "Look, kid, tell Wanda we don't want to impose, but Ford and me are comin' down tomorrow with our wives. Can you or Mabel pick us up at the airport tomorrow morning?"
"We have school," Dipper reminded him.
"Oy, I keep thinkin' of you as older than you are! How about—ah, never mind, we'll Uber it. Ford's gonna get all four of us on a flight with his priority"—despite the occasion, Dipper couldn't help grinning, because in his mind he could see his Grunkle's finger-wiggle as he pronounced the word—"status. We oughta be there around eleven in the morning. Tell Wanda we're coming, and as much as we can, we'll take care of stuff for her. Ford will even talk to Alex's rabbi and all. Is the burial—"
"She wanted her ashes to be buried next to Granddad."
"Yeah, it's a nice place, Beth Shalom, I've visited before. Kid, did you ever sit shiva?"
"No. I know sort of what it is, though."
"Yeah, well, in this case it ain't possible for people to sit in Monica's home, which is traditional, so it goes to the oldest male relative's house. Technically, that's Sixer, who's like fifteen minutes older'n me. I mean, face it, none of us is that religious, but this is probably what Shermy would've liked, so the burial service will be on Sunday, I'm pretty sure, and then everybody will come up here for the week. We'll honor Monica's memory and all. Shame she didn't much like the Pines side of the family, but—well, it's sad she's gone. Hey, is Mabel there?"
"Right beside me."
"Yeah, she called with the news. She, uh, doin' OK?"
"I think so."
"Let me talk to her."
Dipper handed her the phone and she said, "Hi, Grunkle Stan."
She talked to him for a few minutes, then hung up. "They're coming down," she said.
"Yeah, he told me." Dipper took a deep breath. "Do you feel—grief?"
She shook her head. "Just sad, but not, you know, deep. It's been so long since we saw her, and except for birthday cards, she never wrote to us or called us. I guess I feel guilty, though. Maybe if we'd made an effort—"
"Look," Dipper said, "right now I think we need to help Mom and Dad all we can. So let's toss the leftovers and clean up the kitchen."
"That's a good idea," Mabel agreed. However, she did eat one more taco before they started disposing of leftovers.
Their mom was away for about two hours, and when she came back, it was nearly ten p.m. She found them in the living room, sitting on the sofa with a subdued Tripper between them, as if trying to offer them a little comfort. She smiled at the sight and said, "Alex made the flight. And as I came through the kitchen, I saw what you did. Thanks, guys. I love both of you."
Dipper and Mabel stood up and hugged her, and she cried. "I—you know, I never got to know Monica all that well. She was my mother-in-law, but—just sort of nice, polite, and distant all the time, you know? I—I hope I haven't been that way with you kids."
"No, mom!" Mabel said. "You know better!"
She smoothed Mabel's hair. "You're so grown-up looking. I wish there'd been a book of instructions for how to be a good mom. I might have done some things wrong."
"You did so much right that we never noticed," Dipper said.
When she had calmed down, they sat in the living room, and Dipper told her of the conversation he'd had with Stan.
"Oh, they have to stay with us!" Wanda said.
"Mom—they don't want to intrude," Dipper said. "They just want to help out however they can."
"I suppose I have to call the Rabbi, don't I?" Wanda asked. "I feel funny—he knows I'm not Jewish—"
"Grunkle Ford will do that for you as soon as he gets here tomorrow morning," Mabel said.
"And Lorena and Sheila are coming, too," Dipper added.
Wanda brightened up a little. She liked the elder Pines twins' wives immensely. "I think that will help more than anything," she said. "To have some family members to talk to."
When they'd all asked each other if they were all right, and each one assured the others that he or she was, they finally went to bed. Outside her bedroom door, Mabel said, "I don't suppose we can finagle a day out of school?"
"Sure we could," Dipper said. "But, you know—so many kids say their grandmothers have died—"
"But this one's not bogus, and Mom will back us up. I'm gonna call tomorrow morning, Dip," Mabel said. "I don't want to leave Mom alone."
And that was a bit of a surprise, because Mabel was Daddy's girl. Wanda had always been warmer toward Dipper—not that she was a bad mother toward Mabel, far from it, but the kids could tell their parents had favorites.
"OK," he said. "No track practice tomorrow, anyway—yeah, let's call and talk to the assistant principal. I think she knows we wouldn't lie, and we can offer to bring in an excuse."
Then, reflecting that Mabel really was growing up—which meant that he was, too—Dipper went to bed and, uncharacteristically, whispered a little prayer that his dad would have a safe trip and would find comfort.
And if it did nothing else, at least it made him feel a little better and a little less confused.
