I cooked for three weeks. Nine dozen rounds of lefse, frozen flat. Rosettes and krumkake. Wild rice stuffing from the rice Leonard’s cousin harvests up by Nett Lake.
My friend Joanne came over twice to peel. Joanne has been my friend since we were room mothers together. She runs the fire auxiliary, and she has a tongue on her.
“Two hours,” she said, over a sink full of potatoes. “Like a dentist appointment.”
“Joanne.”
“I’m just saying what you won’t.”
“That’s why I won’t. They are my grandchildren’s mother and father, and I am going to be at that door at two o’clock for the next twenty years if I am spared. I would like it to be a door that opens.”
She peeled a while.
“And the fire hall? That’s not about Amber?”
I am trying to tell you this straight, so here is what I told her.
“Sunday night it was about Amber. By Monday noon it was about Mr. Kowalski. I can’t explain it better than that.”
Joanne snorted. But she put it to the auxiliary that Thursday, and eight women signed up to cook and serve.
The gifts gave me the most trouble. Twenty dollars.
I am ashamed to say my first feeling was insult. Then I made myself sit down again with that gravy boat, so to speak, and remember last Christmas.
Last Christmas I gave Ella and Sam bicycles. Real ones, from the hardware store, assembled. Leonard and I never had much, and there was life insurance money sitting there, and I wanted to see their faces. I wheeled them out from behind the tree with bows on the handlebars.
And I remember now what I did not let myself see then. Greg and Amber had given the children new sleds. Good plastic ones. They were leaning by the door, and nobody looked at them the rest of the day.
Amber had gone into my kitchen and done dishes for forty-five minutes.
So. Twenty dollars.
I went to the hardware store and stood in the aisle a long time. For Sam, who is six and afraid of his closet, I bought a flashlight. A good metal one, the kind you can drop. It was $13.99 and the batteries came in it.
For Ella, who is nine and has started hanging around my elbow when I cook, I did not buy anything at all. I took a recipe card out of my box. Not a copy. The card. It is in my mother’s handwriting, with a butter stain on the corner, and it is for the lefse. I bought a little wooden frame at the dollar store for $1.25 and put the card in it.
I figured that came in under the limit.
Specialty: Quiet Comebacks & Personal Justice
David Reynolds focuses on stories where underestimated individuals regain control of their lives. His writing centers on measured decisions rather than dramatic outbursts — emphasizing preparation, patience, and the long game. His characters don’t shout; they act.