Chapter 11: Snow at Norma's

It snowed six inches on Christmas morning.

I spent Christmas Eve in Centerville with my parents.

My mother cried when she saw the locket knotted around my neck.

Christmas Day was Norma's.

She'd invited Mitch and his grandfather at noon.

They came at eleven-fifteen, because Mitch's grandfather believes on time is late.

He was eighty-six, small and straight-backed, in a plaid shirt and suspenders and a hat with earflaps.

He took my hand in both of his.

"So you're Hoyle," he said. "You're shorter than he says."

"Grandpa," Mitch said.

"He says you're about nine feet tall and mean as a snake."

"I am mean as a snake."

"Good," he said. "Somebody ought to be."

Norma had made a turkey big enough for forty drivers.

We ate it at her kitchen table with the snow coming down past the window.

Mitch's grandfather told the story of Mitch, age nine, trying to fix the family lawnmower and launching it into the creek.

Mitch told the story of his grandfather buying a "Swiss" watch off Shay's Closet that turned out to be made of painted tin.

"Fourteen dollars," his grandfather said. "I'd like it back."

"Get in line, Grandpa."

After pie, Mitch's grandfather beat Norma at cribbage twice.

Then we did gifts.

I gave Mitch a framed picture of the stops-per-hour board from the one week in October when he'd beaten me.

WENDT 31.9. HOYLE 31.7.

Underneath, on the glass, I'd written "Enjoy it while it lasts."

He laughed so hard he snorted.

"I'm hanging this over my bed," he said.

"That's weird."

"It's going over my bed."

He pushed a little box across the table to me.

It was wrapped in the brown paper we use at the depot, and he'd drawn a shipping label on it in marker.

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