Good-bye and Amen Read Online Free PDF Page B

and I gave that party. They called me Uncle Bernard. Eleanor was my special charge, but they were all fond of me. I think.
    I was very good at giving parties and presents, because I watched well, and remembered.
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    Eleanor Applegate I looked across the table just as Norman’s mother got lobster guts right down the front of her dress. Jeannie Courtemanche was trying to help her, but on the other side, right at that moment, Jimmy started to eat with his hands. Hazel went critical. Her face got this closed-up stony expression. She sat eating coleslaw with her fork, trying not to let it get involved with the fish juice while her lobster lay there draining on the plate. When the serving girl asked if she was still eating, she just shook her head with her lips pursed. Jimmy said, “I’ll take it,” and lifted it right off her plate and started to eat it with his fingers.
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    Bobby Applegate That was a bad scene. It was August, so the lobsters were shedders, and they’re messy, they just are. Hazel’s condition improved when they passed the wipesand you could clean your hands, but then the toasts began, and I guess she’d never seen anything like it. The Danish cousins tried very hard to be nice to her but Kjeld said she kept referring to Monica as “an heiress.” She was good and sick of the whole lot of us by the time she left town.
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    Monica Faithful We got off to a bad start. None of us had realized in advance that it would be so foreign to Hazel and she’d take it personally. We meant so well. Except maybe Mother, but even she had worked hard, and tried to make it perfect for everybody. She was never going to be best friends with Bobby’s parents and I truly think she’d meant to take Norman’s mother up, to show her a great time, adopt her. She pictured them as pals, taking care of the grandkids together, that sort of thing. Sorry, wrong number.
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    Norman Faithful I don’t think Mama was feeling well at our wedding. She was quieter than usual. But she’s never been a boisterous person and I’m sure she enjoyed it. Sydney was at her best and I was pleased that Mama got to see her do her stuff.
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    Eleanor Applegate Mother was at her worst, of course. Bobby’s parents didn’t come, which annoyed her no end. They sent a beautiful silver cream and sugar on a little hammered silver tray from Tiffany, and Sydney put it in a corner mostly hidden by a huge vase from the Maitlands. The presents were all laid out at The Plywoods on tables draped in white cloths, with the gift cards from each person propped in front of the gifts. Except for the Applegates’ cream and sugar. Somehow she misplaced the card for that one.
    The Plywoods? Grandmother Candace’s “cottage.” She’d torn down the summerhouse Mother grew up in, which had stairs that were hard for Uncle Bernard and was impossible to heat, and built a big modern ranch house on the site. It was supposed to be called The Elms, after the old house, but Mother refused. When Candace died, Mother sold it practically before the will was read. She never even asked us how we felt about it.
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    Amelia Crane Morriset Norman gave the best toast I’d ever heard, bar none. He looked sensationally handsome and he spoke without notes. He thanked the Mosses for the parties and for welcoming him, and then he toasted his bride…standard stuff, I know, but it brought me to tears. For a split second, I was actually jealous of Monica.
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    Monica Faithful We moved into a parlor-floor apartment in Back Bay. I loved my job and Norman was doing well at Ropes & Gray. We took Norman’s children every other weekend. At first they were like feral animals. Sam was four and the baby, Sylvie, was just over two. Sam used to hiss at me when I came into the room. Once he actually spat, but Norman had him out of his chair and over his knee for a whack on his bottom with scary speed. He said,