Read Online Full of Grace by Dorothea Benton Frank - Free Book Online
Authors: Dorothea Benton Frank
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was what the crowd always wanted, a good time, a little takeaway value and, in addition, some pampering of the mind, body and spirit.
A real itinerary began to fall into place that included historic tours, shopping, meals and time slots for other indulgences. I began to feel more optimistic and actually impatient to make the trip.
By the time I got home that evening, loaded with groceries to prepare veal Marsala and risotto with fresh asparagus, I was mentally fortified to investigate Michael’s anxiety from last night. If I fed him well and we drank some wine together, I felt reasonably sure that he would tell me what was on his mind. It was probably about his mother. If that was my mother—estranged as we might be to each other these days—I would surely cry my eyes out, too.
The heat of the day was broken by six and I decided to serve dinner in the brick courtyard that spilled out from our living room. We loved eating outside; somehow everything tasted better. And I could decorate outside and create an atmosphere that ranged from tropical to elegant. Sometimes, when we were in the mood for Bali, I took our potted palm trees and rolled them up to the table. I would have as many as fifty votive candles lighting the wall (thank you, God, for inventing Pier One) and serve a seafood stew in carved-out loaves of bread. Or I could stretch for eighteenth-century elegance, using every piece of crystal, silver and lace-trimmed linen I owned, which wasn’t a lot, but Michael was always good enough to say he got the picture. We loved the fantasy of pretending to be somewhere else or in a different time, and the night always progressed to a walk on the Battery Wall, time spent marveling at the stars, the breezes that floated across the water and, most of all, a moment reflecting on the profundity of Fort Sumter.
Michael would always say something like “Can you believe all these people died for their country, just like that? Crazy!”
I would shake my head and say something like “Only to be outdone by the crew of the Hunley. Those guys were completely nuts!”
It wasn’t that we weren’t patriotic; like too many of our peers, we couldn’t imagine the passions of war. And the H. L. Hunley crew that drowned was the third crew to do so. Can you imagine the guy in charge asking for volunteers? Okay, men, here’s the deal. Even though the first and second crew drowned trying to sink the Yankees, we need seven good men to keep the Hunley going and a crew captain. Our target is the Housatonic and those sumbitches who will burn Charleston to the ground if we don’t get ’em first …
For as much as Michael or I would have done to save Charleston—and that was a lot—neither of us could envision offering to die for the cause with the full knowledge that we most assuredly would die for the cause. I was a major chicken.
I went outside to check the weather wondering What would I die for? Was there anything? Or anyone? No. The president? In theory, perhaps I would, or I could understand that the Secret Service was trained to take the proverbial bullet. I had never entertained one second of ambition to join the Secret Service. Would I die for Michael? Better yet, would he die for me? And what happened when you died anyway? If Nonna was right, the guys from the Hunley were all up in heaven having a big party with the martyrs from the Roman Colosseum. But I didn’t think that was an actual possibility. Heaven and hell just didn’t make any sense to me. It was true enough that my faith had wobbled for years and then gone into hiding. But my theory on the afterlife and the possibility of its existence was like Occam’s razor—all things being equal, the simplest answer was usually the correct one. When you died, you died.Except for Nonno? In any case, it had been a long time since I had really thought about it.
I was saving my energy for more urgent things—feeding Michael and finding out what was on his mind.
It was still
A real itinerary began to fall into place that included historic tours, shopping, meals and time slots for other indulgences. I began to feel more optimistic and actually impatient to make the trip.
By the time I got home that evening, loaded with groceries to prepare veal Marsala and risotto with fresh asparagus, I was mentally fortified to investigate Michael’s anxiety from last night. If I fed him well and we drank some wine together, I felt reasonably sure that he would tell me what was on his mind. It was probably about his mother. If that was my mother—estranged as we might be to each other these days—I would surely cry my eyes out, too.
The heat of the day was broken by six and I decided to serve dinner in the brick courtyard that spilled out from our living room. We loved eating outside; somehow everything tasted better. And I could decorate outside and create an atmosphere that ranged from tropical to elegant. Sometimes, when we were in the mood for Bali, I took our potted palm trees and rolled them up to the table. I would have as many as fifty votive candles lighting the wall (thank you, God, for inventing Pier One) and serve a seafood stew in carved-out loaves of bread. Or I could stretch for eighteenth-century elegance, using every piece of crystal, silver and lace-trimmed linen I owned, which wasn’t a lot, but Michael was always good enough to say he got the picture. We loved the fantasy of pretending to be somewhere else or in a different time, and the night always progressed to a walk on the Battery Wall, time spent marveling at the stars, the breezes that floated across the water and, most of all, a moment reflecting on the profundity of Fort Sumter.
Michael would always say something like “Can you believe all these people died for their country, just like that? Crazy!”
I would shake my head and say something like “Only to be outdone by the crew of the Hunley. Those guys were completely nuts!”
It wasn’t that we weren’t patriotic; like too many of our peers, we couldn’t imagine the passions of war. And the H. L. Hunley crew that drowned was the third crew to do so. Can you imagine the guy in charge asking for volunteers? Okay, men, here’s the deal. Even though the first and second crew drowned trying to sink the Yankees, we need seven good men to keep the Hunley going and a crew captain. Our target is the Housatonic and those sumbitches who will burn Charleston to the ground if we don’t get ’em first …
For as much as Michael or I would have done to save Charleston—and that was a lot—neither of us could envision offering to die for the cause with the full knowledge that we most assuredly would die for the cause. I was a major chicken.
I went outside to check the weather wondering What would I die for? Was there anything? Or anyone? No. The president? In theory, perhaps I would, or I could understand that the Secret Service was trained to take the proverbial bullet. I had never entertained one second of ambition to join the Secret Service. Would I die for Michael? Better yet, would he die for me? And what happened when you died anyway? If Nonna was right, the guys from the Hunley were all up in heaven having a big party with the martyrs from the Roman Colosseum. But I didn’t think that was an actual possibility. Heaven and hell just didn’t make any sense to me. It was true enough that my faith had wobbled for years and then gone into hiding. But my theory on the afterlife and the possibility of its existence was like Occam’s razor—all things being equal, the simplest answer was usually the correct one. When you died, you died.Except for Nonno? In any case, it had been a long time since I had really thought about it.
I was saving my energy for more urgent things—feeding Michael and finding out what was on his mind.
It was still
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