Chapter 10 - The Sovereign Table
Spring came to Central Ohio in late April with a sudden, violent burst of green. The frost finally retreated from the ground, leaving the black soil in German Village soft and smelling of wet limestone and new growth.
I spent the second Saturday of May in my back garden, turning over the dirt in the two raised cedar beds I had built three years ago.
The world had shifted into a new alignment.
Jenna and Craig had not divorced, but the architecture of their household had permanently altered. Craig had taken over the school drop-offs and the grocery accounts; Jenna’s firm had downsized its office space on High Street, moving into a smaller, less theatrical suite that didn't require thirty-two-hundred-dollar emergency infusions.
They did not call me. When I saw them at my mother’s seventy-seventh birthday gathering in March—a small, stiff afternoon tea at a restaurant in Upper Arlington—we spoke in the polite, measured tones of distant business associates who shared an investment in the same municipal bond. There were no requests. There were no demands.
The fence had been built, and though they hated the wood it was made of, they respected the height.
Chloe had stopped sending frantic group texts about babysitting rotations. Brian had taken my advice: he had turned his own machine down two notches, telling his wife that if she wanted to host Sunday dinners for twelve people, she was going to have to peel the potatoes herself. Surprisingly, their house hadn't burned down. The children were still alive, still loud, and Chloe looked less like an escapee from a storm every time I saw her at the grocery store.
At eleven o'clock that morning, a blue pickup truck pulled up to my curb.
Calvin got out, followed by his wife Sarah and their fifteen-year-old son Luke, who was carrying a large wooden toolbox in both hands.
“Bell!” Calvin shouted across the lawn, adjusting his ball cap. “You got those replacement copper elbows, or am I going to have to drive back to the warehouse?”
“They’re in the shop,” I called back, wiping the dirt from my leather work gloves. “Bench three.”
Luke ran down the basement stairs with the enthusiasm of a boy who had been promised he could run the plasma cutter under supervision. Sarah walked across the grass carrying a round glass baking dish covered in aluminum foil.
“Peach cobbler,” she said, handing it to me with a sharp, approving smile. “Still warm. Calvin said if I didn't bring it, you’d charge us double-time for the welding tips.”
“Calvin’s right,” I said, taking the dish. “My rates went up after the holidays.”
“Good,” she said, touching my arm with a warm, genuine affection that had never required a blood test to justify itself. “Some people need to pay the surcharge.”
Ten minutes later, another car pulled up behind Calvin’s truck.
It was my father’s Buick.
My heart gave a small, familiar bump against my ribs, but the panic was gone. It was just an engine slowing down.
Dad got out of the driver’s side, moving more easily now that the warm weather had loosened his joints. He walked around to the passenger side, opened the door, and let Ruby out onto the curb.
She was wearing denim overalls covered in grass stains, her pink sneakers flashing in the sun. She looked up at my two-story brick house, then spotted me standing by the raised garden beds.
“Uncle Marcus!” she yelled, her voice carrying clear down the block.
She didn't wait for her grandfather. She sprinted down the concrete walk, jumped over the small cast-iron garden gate, and hit my thighs at full speed.
I caught her under the arms, lifted her into the air until her sneakers were level with my belt, and set her down on the grass.
“You’re getting too big to jump fences, bug,” I said.
“I grew two inches,” she said, standing on her tiptoes to prove it. “Grandma measured me on the pantry door. I’m taller than Chloe’s middle boy now.”
Dad walked slowly through the gate, his hands in his cardigan pockets. He nodded to Calvin, who was coming out of the basement bulkhead holding a length of two-inch copper pipe.
“Calvin,” Dad said, touching the brim of his hat.
“Mr. Bell,” Calvin replied, giving him a respectful, measured nod before heading back toward his truck. There was no hostility, but there was no deference either. It was the simple, horizontal acknowledgment of two working men who understood how things were held together.
Dad looked at me, then at the garden beds.
“Your mother wanted me to drop this off,” he said, reaching into his pocket and handing me an envelope.
I didn't open it. I looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s not money,” Dad said quickly, holding up his hands. “It’s an invitation. Memorial Day. We’re doing ribs on the back deck.”
He paused, looking down at his shoes, then back up into my eyes.
“There are eight chairs at the big table, Marcus. One of them has your name taped to the back of it. Chloe’s boys are eating at the picnic table on the lawn with the rest of the kids.”
I stood holding the envelope in my dirt-stained glove.
“Who’s watching Ruby while you do the ribs?” I asked.
Dad smiled—a small, crooked, authentic smile that reached his eyes for the first time in six months.
“Nobody’s watching her,” he said. “She’s eight. She’s helping me with the charcoal. She knows how to handle an eight-pound bag without dropping it.”
Ruby looked up at me, her small face serious. “Uncle Marcus, can I see the train layout before we go to the hardware store? Luke said he helped you wire the crossing signals.”
I looked at my father, then down at my niece.
“Go on down the bulkhead, Ruby,” I said. “Luke’s down there with the soldering iron. Tell him to show you how the relay works.”
“Okay!” She took off across the lawn like a hound let off a leash, disappearing down the cellar steps with a shout that echoed off the stone foundation.
Dad and I stood together in the May sunshine. The neighborhood was alive with the sound of lawnmowers, children playing three doors down, and the steady, rhythmic roar of the traffic along the Olentangy River in the distance.
“You’ve got a good place here, Marcus,” Dad said, looking at the brick walls, the clean mortar joints, the straight, level line of the cedar fence I had finished the week before.
“I do,” I said.
May you like
“It’s not empty,” he said softly, almost to himself.
“No, Dad,” I said, turning to walk toward the basement steps where the sound of Ruby’s laughter was coming up through the stone. “It was never empty. You just had to look past your own calendar to see who lived here.”
