My Father's Best Friend Fixed My Roof, Then Never Left My Kitchen novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: Vilija
The new table was oak, as wide as the kitchen allowed, with a leaf in it and a corner worn smooth on purpose.
Milan had built it in twelve nights in his barn.
He would not let me see it until Wednesday, when he carried it in on the shoulders of four men from the Thursday stools.
They set it where the old one had stood, under the overhead light.
The old one went to the cellar for Milan to finish refinishing someday.
By five o'clock on Christmas Eve it held a white cloth, twelve plates and a candle in a saucer.
The kitchen was warm and full of steam.
Mushroom soup simmered on the back burner, and the pierogi waited in a bowl under a dish towel, potato and cheese and sauerkraut.
A basket of oplatky sat on the sideboard, thin white wafers stamped with a manger.
A jar of honey beside it with a spoon.
The church lady had brought the poppy-seed rolls.
The neighbor from across the street brought a pan of kapusta and a bottle of plum brandy.
She left the brandy at the end of the table.
The Thursday liars came in a body, with their wives, in their good sweaters, and left their seed caps on the radiator.
It was crowded, loud and hot.
Somebody had put a record on the old player in the hall.
Gus slept under the table with his chin on a boot.
Before we sat down, Milan took a plate from the cupboard and set it at the head of the table by the window.
He set a knife and a fork and a folded napkin beside it.
Then he pulled out the old chair with the flat cushion and left it there.
Nobody said anything.
The Slovak custom is an empty place for the people who aren't at the table.
My father had set one every year of my life, for his mother, for my mother.
I stood with a wooden spoon in my hand and my eyes burning, and the room went quiet in a gentle way.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of My Father's Best Friend Fixed My Roof, Then Never Left My Kitchen are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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