Chapter 6: Sold Out

The Grange Mercantile sells everything in Alder Falls that isn't food, and by noon on Friday it also sold my uncle's cookbook.

It sat in a cardboard display by the register, forty glossy gold copies.

My grandmother's face smiled from the back cover.

I knew the picture, because I took it in her kitchen the year she turned eighty, and nobody had asked me.

THE DOYLE FAMILY COOKBOOK, said the cover, and under the title, in cursive, Winifred's Christmas Table.

I picked up a copy, opened it to the turkey, and read my own words set in a neat font.

The brine had the extra tablespoon of maple.

I knew that, because I was the one who taught her to double it.

The recipe was right, which meant he had read the green tin.

The gravy, the gingerbread and the relish were right too.

The other eight dishes each had a page of their own, and every page said RECIPE IN PREPARATION.

I stood in the paper plate aisle with my ears roaring and a stack of foil pans under one arm.

"Hattie Doyle," said a voice at the register. "Just the girl."

Barton leaned on the counter in his fleece vest, handing out flyers to a line of eight people.

He saw me, and he gave the line a wide, warm, family smile.

"Folks, my niece. Give her a hand. She's had a bad week."

Several people looked at their shoes.

I walked to the front of the line and set the cookbook down on the counter.

"These are my grandmother's words," I said, "and mine."

"It's our family's recipe, sweetheart."

"It's my turkey. You stole my turkey."

"Hattie."

He lowered his voice, but only to the volume that a line of eight can still hear perfectly.

"I understand you're grieving. Nobody blames you for your little scene."

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