WE GATHER TOGETHER by Edward L. Woodyard

We Gather Together Chapter Two

Sam McCulloch imagined that Scott would be standing alone on the walkway, at the end by the driveway, wearing what he wore when he left in such anger. His hands would be in the pockets of his khakis and his brown leather bomber jacket would be unzipped over a checkered flannel shirt. Scott would be staring at his childhood home and then lower his eyes to concentrate on his father.

Sam needed to see Scott there. He hadn't talked to his eldest son in eight years.

Sam envisioned he would step slowly down the porch stairs and move toward Scott. Scott would then cautiously come toward his father, taking his hands out his pockets. At first, they would each hesitate, uncertain about what they would feel or how they would react. But then slowly, Scott would smile and then Sam would smile wider. Their grins would let them approach each other with more confidence and greater determination. They would then stride toward each other, opening their arms to each other, ready to embrace, to apologize, to let themselves love each other again. All would be forgiven.

"Sam!"

Julia was calling from the kitchen. She was done with the breakfast dishes, wiping her hands on a dish towel and putting it back on a rack next to the sink. She tucked an errant strand of white hair behind her ear. When she had let herself go white ten years ago, Sam assured her that the decision had made her look even lovelier.

Sam closed the front door and returned to the den. He lowered the collar of his sweater.

"I'm here. Do you need help with anything?" he asked.

"How's the camera? Did you figure it out?"

"I think I need a graduate degree in computer engineering."

Julia smiled at Sam's comment as she entered the living room and took a seat at her desk in a far corner by a bay window overlooking a rear patio and back garden. She saw that the frost had shocked the geraniums in their large terra cotta pots, as well as lulled the hydrangeas lining the stone wall into their winter slumber.

"You might take the camera into town and have Bob Lundgren look at it," she suggested as she surveyed a photograph in a silver frame which was to the left of a desk blotter.

The annual family portrait taken at Thanksgiving always went in that silver frame, replacing the one from the year before. She had stored years of Thanksgiving portraits behind its glass.

The original one had been taken during their first Thanksgiving in their new home in Castlebury. A Federal-style Victorian built in the 1870s, the house was new to them. When Sam and Julia bought the farmhouse, it had been ignored and forgotten for decades, held together by memory, fortitude and lots of dust. It was still their home after all the years of restoring and rehabilitating it, updating the electrical and plumbing, but keeping historic remnants, such as a coal chute door into the basement and an exterior access door for block ice by the back entry.

In that first photograph, Julia sat forward on the living room couch, holding Scott as an infant on her lap, with her mother and her sister Emma seated on either side of her. Sam stood behind the couch with his brother Tom and Tom's then wife Beatrice on one side of him; his parents, Peter and Anne McCulloch, and his paternal grandfather J.J. McCulloch, the one who started the family printing business, were on Sam's other side. Sam still had a full head of light brown hair and Julia was still a blonde, although she then had some silver among the gold, as Sam kindly told her when she discovered her first gray hairs. Sam had used his reliable Nikon F for that picture. He had liked that camera; it had a front lever which set the timer, giving him just enough time to position himself behind Julia and their year-old son before the shutter snapped. A camera was so much easier to figure out back then, he thought. He also thought the same was true for life.

It had been nine years since the whole family had been together for the Thanksgiving portrait, just Sam, Julia and the four kids. It was before Drew and Annie had married. Ben was still in middle school. And Scott had begun working at the plant and was living over an auto repair shop just outside of town.

This year's portrait would have Sam and Julia; Drew and Cara with their two girls, Courtney and Lindsay; Annie and possibly Jack if they could reconcile by then, along with their two kids, Jason and Kelly; and Ben who was a senior at Columbia, the family's first and only Ivy Leaguer.

Julia's older half-sister, Emma Griffin, would also be in the picture. They had the same mother but different fathers, their mother having married Julia's father after she was widowed during the Korean War. Her first husband had been a Navy pilot who was shot down at Inchon.

Emma hadn't missed a Thanksgiving in thirty years. She lived by herself and was a self-described spinster. As she reminded people during her annual treks east, when she would introduce herself by misquoting Bette Davis in Now, Voyager, "I'm the spinster aunt. All the best families have them."

Julia hadn't heard from Emma about her plans for this year since Emma had embarked in Miami on a Caribbean cruise two weeks earlier. Julia was also worried about Emma's travel plans, now that there was a nationwide airline strike underway. Would Emma be able to fly into Westchester Airport or would she have to take a train from Florida? She wouldn't drive, that was certain. Julia knew that somehow Emma would figure it all out and let her know. Emma would be there for Thanksgiving. There was no way that she would miss it.

Julia looked at Emma in last year's Thanksgiving portrait. She was seated in the center of the couch, next to Julia, while Sam was relegated to his usual spot behind his wife. Three children, two spouses and three grandchildren were distributed on or around the couch. Even though a few managed slight smiles, the subjects looked stern, the photograph's tone being set by Emma who insisted that they were posing for posterity, so decorum must be enforced: shoulders back, chins down, hands folded in the lap or down at the side, and legs crossed at the ankles for the seated women.

Julia thought to herself that there was definitely a reason why Emma had never married.