#SampleSunday: Treat Yourself to the Best

In my 2006 collection of love stories, My Last Romance & other passions (FREE today for Kindle) there is a story called "Treat Yourself to the Best." In it a young woman named Fifi, who grew up in a large, loud rural family, has moved to the city and married. She's always been a little embarrassed by her boisterous family but her city-born husband loves them, which baffles her. In one scene they return to her home to help in a sausage-making party. When I wrote the scene I described her father's workshop envisioning my father's. I had not read this story in years, probably since before my father died. Last night I re-read it and had a total meltdown reading the description. For me it is a sweet memory. I hope you will enjoy the read, too.

from "Treat Yourself To The Best" in My Last Romance & other passions:

"Let’s go, guys," my father says swallowing the last of his coffee. "If that’s Thad we better get him before he comes in the house or it will be an hour till we can get him moving." He looks at me and gives me the wide, beaming smile that is mine alone. "Coming, sweetie?"

For years I felt guilty about the obvious fondness my father saved for me. I knew fathers were like that with daughters but I felt bad for Andie until I realized she was oblivious to it. It isn’t easy being sensitive in this family.

"We’re going out tonight with Simon and RuthAnn," I tell Tim as we tramp across the snow-packed driveway.

"Sounds like..." His words are cut off by the rumble of a monster red truck that screeches to a halt in front of us.

"Fifi!" Thad bellows as he jumps down from the cab. He grabs me round the waist and scoops me up over his shoulder laughing.

"Put me down!" I scream and I wonder how many times we have been through this, as Thad tips me halfway down his back threatening to drop me on my head. But it is impossible to be mad at Thad. He is nearly as tall as Bart but bulkier with a beer belly that seems to be growing as he moves farther into his forties. But unlike Bart and Simon’s sober dark seriousness Thad is as blond and radiant as a choir of naughty angels.

"Tim," he says holding out his hand to my husband with me still squealing and kicking, "good to see you. How come this one isn’t knocked up yet?"

"It’s none of your business, Thad." I get in a good kick connecting with his ribs.

"It’s up to her," Tim says. "I’ll knock her up any time she wants me to."

"Aw, bullshit," Thad turns still carrying me to walk beside Tim toward the barn. "You know women. You can’t wait for them to decide. All they know for sure is that whatever you are doing is what they don’t want. Have you learned to cook yet?" he says to me.

"Put me down." I grab his hair and kick him again this time hard enough that he drops me. "Fuck you, Thad. I can cook."

"Oooo la-ti-da," he flaps his hand in a limp wrist gesture and minces a few steps, "What can you cook? Dainty little cucumber sandwiches and tea. I’m talking real food, Fif, steak and onions, roasted venison, apple pie. Chili." He pronounces the last word with reverence, as though it were a sacrament.

"Come on, Tim," he says dropping a big arm around my husband’s city shoulders as we enter the barn. "We’ll teach you the manly arts today. Go rinse casings," he says shooing me away.

In the ground floor workshop, the woodburner roars. Two pots of spices in water simmer on it filling the air with fragrance. Simon, sleeves rolled above his elbows, energetically scrubs the surface of a long, battered wooden table. In a corner Bart is unpacking and assembling the heavy cast iron grinder that has stuffed thousands of pounds of sausage over the years. Dad is drawing mugs of beer from the spigot on the side of an old refrigerator converted to a beer keg and passing them to three old men, his lifelong buddies, who sit on sawhorses already spinning the yarns of great hunting adventures from decades gone by.

"Wow." Tim’s eyes widen. I try to see Dad’s shop with Tim’s eyes but this place has changed very little since I played here as a child. Every inch of space is in use. Tools hang from the rafters, which support stacks of lumber. Jars filled with screws, nails, nuts, and bolts hang from their lids nailed to the beams amid extra saw bands, clamps, spare kerosene lanterns and things for which I can provide no explanation. Massive metal blocks of machinery sit like rocks. I know the names of most of them and have even used a few—table saws and joiners, turning lathes and drill presses, a towering band-saw in a wooden casing that my father has covered with fifty years worth of newspaper clippings, children’s drawings, photographs, holy cards, cartoons, instruction sheets and letters printed in crayon. Dear Papa, one written on crumbling paper in faded lavender reads, I liked working with you in the shop today. I liked learning how to drill holes in boards and help you hammer nails. I hope you will let me help you again tomorrow. I love you. Fifi.

Over everything – over the leathery books and the drawing tables filled with Simon’s meticulously rendered sketches, over the wood pile beside the stove and the rack of worn ‘Richie coats on the wall, over the bench where Bart loads his 30.06 shells and Dad’s stacks of hunting magazines and tool catalogs, is the soft mist of sawdust that gives the room its fragrance.

from "Treat Yourself To The Best" in My Last Romance & other passions