We only had a few Thanksgivings without Paul. We missed his pies and funny stories, but in the meantime, he always kept up with me and Ethan and our kids. After my dad died, he and Phil quietly took turns filling the empty seat, and they never let me down.
And then the Levins had a grandson of their own, and Joanie and Paul were a team again. That year, as he was arranging his Thanksgiving offerings on Amy’s sideboard, I cornered Joanie in the kitchen: “I’m really happy to see you guys together, but does this mean you’ll want the table back?”
She laughed, looking exactly like Edith, who was also gone. So was Doris. “No, honey, we’re on to a new phase. It’s yours.” Suddenly, it hit me: Joanie and Amy were the grandmothers now.
--
We have yet to host a dinner party for 20, and most days our table is only set up for six. But we’ve used the extra leaves for Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, a seder, and countless book clubs. A few years ago we upgraded from the high chair and the tricycles to jute placemats and matching silverware. We have only one tablecloth, which we don’t use very often—I like to see the table—but every time I lift it up to put it away, I think of that moment when the groom raises the the veil from the bride’s face. I love this table the way some people love their dogs. It’s a steady presence, a port in a storm. I know it’s only a piece of wood, but I swear: The table knows things. It’s seen it all.
Every morning when I sit down in the dining room with my coffee, watching the sunrise over the house next door, I think of Joanie: another mom in another time, waiting for her kids to wake up while the man who would become my husband left for hockey practice on the other side of the fence. Ethan is not as sentimental as I am, but he has never missed the $500 we paid to bring this table home. And I never say a word when he places his newly sharpened skates directly onto it; after all, the nicks and the scratches tell a story.
--
A few years ago Paul got sick. Not long before he died, he came to New Jersey to visit his childhood friend, George, who also happens to be the lawyer we hired to handle the closing on our house. We invited Paul and George for brunch in our dining room, at the Levins’ old table. I polished it up and set it with my best plates and even went to a faraway bagel store to get the best lox. I hoped Paul wouldn’t notice that the original chairs were missing; I’d given them to a friend and replaced them with modern titanium chairs from Crate and Barrel.
If Paul noticed anything amiss, he didn’t mention it. He stayed for hours: through lunch and into the late afternoon, to the point where Ethan and I offered him a cocktail and invited him to stay for Chinese takeout. He was thin and weak, and I knew this might be the last time we saw him. He told story after story: about his early days in New York with Joanie; about his kids and his grandsons, who were his pride and joy. Finally, just as Ethan and I were raising our eyebrows at each other across the table (marital shorthand for, “Who’s going to drive to swimming/basketball/dance?”), Paul stood up to go. He laid his hands flat on the table—his table, our table, someone else’s table someday—and said, “This. This is home.”
It always has been, and always will be. Until it belongs to someone else.
