Memories
I wrote this last year and thought I might as well post it here this year. Hope you enjoy it.
Harriman Nelson stood on the spacious deck of his home sitting on the bluffs above the Pacific Ocean, and stared down at the rapidly darkening beach below. Only a few hours ago he had been at the Institute with some of Seaview's crew and NIMR employees at an annual Thanksgiving dinner arranged for the staff and crew that couldn't get home to spend the day with their families, or who had no families or who just didn't want to go home for whatever reason. Usually the number of employees staying was small and this year had been no exception. Edith had flown in from Boston a few days ago and she and several NIMR secretaries had transformed the normally drab dining room of the cafeteria into a New England Thanksgiving. Gourds, pumpkins and brightly colored leaves had decorated tables that had been set up around the room. Cornucopias had been placed on each of the long serving tables spread about the room and a vast array of food had been available: turkey, ham, bowls of steaming hot sweet potatoes, stuffing, vegetables, gravy and assorted pies, cookies and cakes.
Those that had come had seemed happy to have a place to celebrate Thanksgiving but there was an underlying sadness from the crew as the last cruise had been one they would just as soon have forgotten, having cost them the lives of two of their own. An undersea earthquake had hit unexpectedly causing the Seaview to be buffeted by the resulting underwater waves, knocking them about and causing extensive damage in a few of the frames. The two crewmen that had been killed had died almost instantly of severe head injuries. He'd also been knocked unconscious by the quake and upon waking several hours later had been told of the deaths. Tragic, senseless loss of life was something he felt sure he would never get over even though he'd faced it almost every day of his adult life. It never got any easier to accept and he suspected it never would.
Today had been a day set aside for Thanksgiving but he'd found it difficult to rejoice, to find something to be grateful for, and he struggled to throw off the mantle of sadness that covered him. After the crowd had drifted off to other activities for the rest of the day, he, Lee, Chip, Edith and Angie had packed up some of the leftovers and brought them here, while arranging for the rest to be given away. While the others worked at putting things away in his kitchen and cleaning up, he'd been informed by his overprotective friends that his help wasn't needed and to go sit down some place. Instead, he'd come out here to quietly reflect and enjoy the hushed silence after the last few hours cacophony of voices.
"Admiral?" he heard Lee call and felt him come up beside him several minutes later. "Are you all right? You've been pretty quiet today."
"Since when is that a bad thing?" he asked with a bark of laughter.
"Since I know you're brooding about what happened. It was an accident. We had no way of knowing that earthquake was about to happen. There was just no warning. You can't control everything."
"No. No I can't. It's just such a waste."
"I'm not arguing that fact. Just…let it go. It's not the first time and it unfortunately won't be the last time that we lose someone," he said quietly as he tried to push his own sorrow away and stared out at the ocean beyond, almost invisible now in the evening's shadows. After a few moments spent in silence he turned to Nelson. "Edith and Angie finished putting away the leftovers in your refrigerator but..."
"But now our Mr. Morton is hungry again?" he asked with a knowing smile.
"Actually, so am I," he said with a little laugh. "So is Edith. So is Angie. She stuck around to finish up some dishes so I told her to stick around and help us eat the leftovers."
"That's good, Lee. Angie worked hard today. But when doesn't she? You know, Edith never did like to eat at functions. She always has to make sure everyone else is happy and eating. Come on. Let's go feed our hungry people," he said with an attempt at lightheartedness.
The two walked back into the house together. Nelson continued on into the dining room off the kitchen of the cliff side home, watching as Edith put out containers of leftovers, humming some tune she'd learned over the years as she worked. Looking up, she saw her brother, a small enigmatic smile on his handsome face and she stopped what she was doing and stared at him. "Are you all right?" she asked in concern. She knew he had been injured in the last cruise but he had assured her, as had Jamie that he was fine but she still worried about him. His frown at her question told her she wasn't the only one to have asked that recently.
"I'm fine, Edie. Stop worrying. I heard tell we have hungry people here," he said lightly, hoping to alleviate her concern.
"I heard the same thing so I thought we'd put out the leftovers we just got done putting away," Angie said with a smile at her boss as she carried a platter of rolls to the table.
"Well, with Chip around, I don't think you'll have too much in the way of leftovers to deal with," Lee said as he carried a bottle of wine and five glasses into the dining room, stopping to stare at Nelson for a moment. "Jamie say you're allowed to drink after that head injury?"
"First off, it was a minor concussion and second, I didn't ask him about drinking, but I hardly consider a glass of wine drinking. Now if we get the bourbon out…"
"Harry, I don't think that's a good idea," Edith said in concern earning her another Nelson frown.
"Well, sit down and do away with these blasted leftovers. Why didn't we give them all away anyway?" Nelson asked as he helped himself to more of the turkey and cranberry sauce.
"Because I like leftover turkey and stuffing. I remember all the leftovers we used to have when we were growing up back in Boston. Mother made so much that we had leftovers for days," she said wistfully.
"Or she gave them away," Nelson added as he proceeded to make a huge sandwich, picking and choosing from the assortment of food on the table.
"She did like to give things away," Edith said.
"Growing up in Boston must have been wonderful," Chip said as he made a sandwich that rivaled Nelson's in complexity as well as size.
"It was," Nelson said softly.
"What's your favorite Thanksgiving memory, Edith?" Lee asked as he tried hard to keep up with the sandwich making of his two friends.
"Oh that's easy. I was about fifteen and I hadn't seen Harry for…well way too long. I had come home for the holidays from boarding school in a mood. Mother and Father had been gone for a few years by then and I knew Harry was off some place saving the world," she said smiling when she heard Harry snort indelicately. "Well, I got home expecting to find Aunt Betty waiting for me there. She was mother's sister and always stayed at the house when I would come home. We never got along. She had set ideas about what a young Boston lady should and should not do and I apparently never lived up to it in her eyes."
"And you never tried either, my dear," Harry said with his mouth full of food.
"What was the point? Anyway, I came in the house ready to take on Aunt Betty and who do I see standing there in his dress whites but my handsome brother. I was so shocked, I…well, Aunt Betty would have said it was most unladylike," she imitated her aunt's high snooty voice to perfection causing Harry to almost choke on his sandwich.
"You all right, Admiral?" Angie asked as she slapped him on the back while he choked.
"I…I'm fine, Angie. It's just that voice…I haven't heard that in so long and you did that quite well, Edith."
"I practiced a lot."
"What did you do that was so unladylike?" Angie asked as she nibbled on some turkey.
"Well, I was so shocked and happy that I ran across the room and launched myself into his arms, knocking both of us into the side table that held a priceless lamp, breaking it. Most unladylike," she said again, imitating her voice to perfection again. "We spent the whole break together. Harry cooked us a turkey dinner with all the trimmings and we roamed all over Boston together. It was glorious. I never forgot," she said as she smiled at her brother in affection.
"Nor did I. Brat," he added earning him a thrown roll which he deftly caught and ate with a smile.
"What about your best memory, Lee?" Edith asked.
"Oh, I don't have too many good memories of holidays from my childhood," he said, the others knowing he'd grown up without a father in his life and a mother that seemed to disapprove of most things he did. "But… there was one time I was on leave in Hawaii though. A few of us were invited to the home of one of our shipmates that was from Waikiki. His family made us the best non-traditional Thanksgiving Day feast we'd ever seen: a luau on the beach! Temps in the high 70s, light trade winds, beautiful surf. We ate and surfed and ate some more until we could barely get back to our ship. To this day it still stays with me. Not just the food but getting to see what real family life was like," he added wistfully.
"That sounds like a good memory, Lee," Nelson said softly.
"Chip, how about you?" he asked his executive officer who put his sandwich down and stared off into space for a time.
"That's a hard one, sir. I have so many good memories. I guess I'm lucky in that regard. But…I guess my best memory was one Thanksgiving when I was about sixteen or seventeen. My older sister had been on her way home from college for Thanksgiving break and had been in a bad car accident. We got the call from the police and hurried to the hospital expecting to find her…well you know…dead. Instead we walk in the emergency room and find her propped up in a hospital bed sporting a shiner that would put a prize fighter to shame, a slight concussion and a cast on her left wrist. That was all. Turns out she'd totaled her car and been knocked unconscious but when they transported her they thought she was hurt so much worse and had tried to prepare us for what they thought we might find. She stayed overnight and we brought her home the next day-Thanksgiving. We had a lot to be thankful for that day."
"She was so lucky" Angie whispered.
"Yeah," Chip agreed. "How about you, Angie? Any favorites from your past?" Chip asked with a smile.
"Well," she said after a moment's thought. "I grew up as an Army brat, never knew where we were going to be stationed. You all know about that. Anyway, I never knew if we were going to be in one spot long enough to form any kind of relationship with friends so it was always hard. There was one Thanksgiving I remember though. We were in Texas and I remember being mad at the world, and in particular the army, for stationing my dad in the hottest place I could ever recall being in, in November. To make matters worse, my dad was going to be deployed while my mom and I stayed behind on the base. I didn't want him to go but, he did of course. I spent a lot of time being angry at him for going and the army for sending him. I hadn't had any time to make friends so it was even harder for me. But the day before Thanksgiving there was a knock on my door and there was this scrawny girl about my age standing there with someone I took to be her mother. The woman asked to see my mom and when my mom came to the door she asks if we would like to come to their place for Thanksgiving dinner the next day. Well, to my disgust, she said yes. The whole next day I spent trying hard to stay mad while this girl tried everything to make me laugh. Once I stopped being angry, I had a great time. And to this day, we're still best friends. Kind of sappy, I know but…"
"Not sappy at all, Angie," Nelson said with a smile at his secretary. "That's a lovely memory."
"What about you, sir? You must have something to share," Angie said.
Harry stared at the others about the table. He'd half listened as Edith then Lee then Chip then Angie recalled their best memories of Thanksgiving. He had his own best memory but wasn't sure they would see his best for what it was.
"Come on, sir," Lee said, expecting some story from his childhood. "Share."
Nelson took a sip of his wine and leaned forward. "Well, I know you're probably all expecting some wonderful tale of my childhood," he said glancing up at his sister. "But, to tell you the truth, there is one Thanksgiving I remember vividly. I was…let's just say on a mission. I'd had a…rough time. I had a schedule-get in, get the information I was sent to get and get out. All within a time frame of four days. If I missed the first rendezvous, I had to wait 48 hours for the next chance for extraction. I got in, found out what I needed and was on my way out. I knew it was going to be close and I didn't think I could make it on foot so I "borrowed" a jeep and headed off. Well, not long after that I ran into a patrol and they shot the he…heck out of the jeep, flattened the tires pretty good. I abandoned it and took off cross country with them hot on my heels. I lost them at some point. Came across a farmhouse with a barn and I made my way there slowly. I knew I'd missed the first rendezvous so I was hoping to hide out, then make another attempt. I went inside, made a bed in the hay loft and fell asleep. The next morning I awoke to a shotgun pressed to my forehead," he said pausing to take another long drink of his wine.
"Well, don't stop now! What happened?" Angie asked, leaning forward.
"I surrendered. What else was I going to do? I knew a little of the language of the area and tried to talk my way out of my predicament."
"I assume you did?" Lee asked.
Nelson nodded. "Turns out, the man with the shotgun and I were on the same side. He took me inside and he and his small family welcomed me. I stayed the night in the farmhouse. I have to tell you, when you're bone numbingly cold, a warm fire is pure heaven," he said dreamily.
"Huh, and I thought there was going to be a female involved," Edith said with a smirk.
"Now that you mention it, there was a daughter," he said shaking a finger at her with a huge smile on his face.
"A farmer's daughter?" Lee asked with an incredulous look.
"Yep. She had the biggest, bluest eyes and long brown hair, kind of curly," he said with a dreamy look in his eyes as he stared off into space.
"And did she fall head over heels in love with you?" Edith asked.
"As a matter of fact, she adored me," he said with an impish smile. "Kept staring at me with those big blue eyes, sat close to me, even sat on my lap a few times and…"
"Get on with the story, Harry. How did you get out?" Edith snapped.
"…and," he continued, "She was all of eight years old. Really Edith. What you think of me. It's very sad," he said with an innocent look in his eye as he forlornly shook his head.
The others at the table laughed and he continued his story. "Anyway, the next day I woke up and realized it was Thanksgiving. Another Thanksgiving away from home," he said looking in sadness at Edith.
"I always understood, Harry," she said softly.
"Not always," he said shaking his head and pointing a finger at her. "I remember a few times you…"
"Never mind," she said quickly, not wanting the others to know how hard she'd made her brother's life at times. "What happened? Thanksgiving morning…and…?"
"And I guess I looked sad. At one point, the wife went out to the chicken coop and brought in the biggest chicken I'd seen in a long time, cleaned it, cooked it and that night we had roast chicken, potatoes and carrots from their meager supplies. Turns out they knew of our Thanksgiving customs somehow and wanted to make me feel better. They had so little and yet they gave me so much," he said quietly.
"The next day I had to leave to get to the pick up on time. I tried to give them the money I had with me but they wouldn't take it," he said shaking his head. "They said they owed me for what I was doing. Anyway, I got to the rendezvous, got picked up and came home. As I recall, I was home in time for Christmas that year. You were probably ten then."
"I do remember that. Even that young, I remember you coming home that year. You seemed different to me. Older. Like you'd seen too much. I remember Aunt Betty saying something to that effect. In a disapproving tone of course."
Nelson dropped his eyes from hers; reluctant to remember why he'd looked older to them. "I was older, Edie. But enough of that. Tonight, I want to thank you all for being here and for being a part of my life," he said changing the subject abruptly and standing. "When I started planning the Institute and Seaview, I didn't know fully what I was getting myself into or who I'd have standing by me, or if there would even be anyone standing by me. You all have been a big part of the success of NIMR. And to you I say, thank you," he finished, raising his glass to them.
"It's us that should thank you," Angie said rising with the others. "You allow us to be a part of something wonderful. Something important."
"Very true, Angie. To NIMR," Lee said softly as they clinked glasses.
"Well, I'm hungry," Chip said, breaking the sentimental mood as he sat down and began to make another sandwich, causing the others to groan.
"Where do you put it, Chip?" Lee asked as everyone laughed.
Nelson sat back down and gazed at the people around the table that over the past few years had come to mean a great deal to him. Earlier he'd been consumed with a sadness that crowded out any thankfulness he might have felt. Shaking the sorrow had seemed impossible, but now, although it still lingered inside, he'd found a part of him that could be thankful for what he had, for what he was, for who he had by his side and he smiled.
He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has. ~Epictetus
The End