Chapter 24: Long Match

The next Christmas Eve, snow came down on the Ockenden place before noon and did not stop.

I had two horses to blanket, a stall to bed, and a ham in Cal's oven that was Peg's business and not mine.

By four the house smelled of cloves, and every window had steamed over.

The long kitchen table had been pulled out and set with every plate Cal's mother had ever owned.

There were seven chairs.

Mr. Ockenden sat at the head of it in his wheelchair with a paper crown on his head.

The old rancher had made him wear it, because it came out of a cracker, and because he'd lost an argument.

The sheep woman had come with two pies and a bottle of something she called cider.

Peg sat at the foot with her cedar box on the sideboard behind her.

She had stopped carrying it everywhere in February, but she liked it near.

"The east pasture gate's open," the old rancher said to Cal as he sat. "I came through it."

"It's been open since I hung it."

"Man builds a gate and never shuts it. That's a fence, in my book, with ideas."

"Sit down," said Cal.

The seventh chair was empty, near the window, and nobody had said a word about it.

My mother had sent a card in the mail, and a loaf of her bread, wrapped in a dish towel.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I'm Done Being the Family Joke from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.