The Finding Tree

Chapter 23 - The Gratitude

November 23, 1995

When dinner was over, we all stretched as if our skin would split.

Ginny had spent the last three days brining, and then smoking a twenty-five pound turkey in the backyard. She had a small barrel type smoker that she'd cobbled together from a broken barbecue, half a fifty-gallon drum, steel mesh and stove pipe. She had hand split a small pile of apple wood to feed the smoker and she smelled like campfires and vanilla. It was a heady mix.

This woman had skills I could only dream about and she did it all with a Swarovski crystal hair clip clutching the storm of her hair, hydrangeas on the table and starched linen napkins at each place setting.

Miko was a mess today. Something was off. He had started drinking earlier before dinner, which was unlike him and I was uncomfortably aware of his inebriation.

It was different from my dad's version of intoxication. Dad would go dark, pick fights and become unavailable. With Miko, alcohol seemed to mellow him, bring out memories, sadness and joy. Miko became more of what he'd always been, and realizing that was one of the few moments in my life that have stayed with me.

Alcohol wasn't the enemy. Our own inability to regulate our weakness was.

He took Peter to the living room, and offered him a beer. He accepted the dark glass bottle, and raised it to Miko. They clinked in solidarity, then both focused on ignoring the football game on TV only grunting at appropriate moments.

After Ginny and I cleaned up, and at least covered the leftovers on the counter. We sat at the kitchen table and drank spiced tea, but I was always looking through the door into the other room.

"Why's he drinking today?"

"It's a hard day for us, Moja Droga."

Taken by surprise, I looked at her in concern? "Thanksgiving is hard for you? Oh I'm so sorry, should we go?"

"Nonono.. Thanksgiving is beautiful...the date is hard. November twenty-third is a dark day for us. Miko and I were on the same train on this day, fifty two years ago." She absently massaged her tattoo, and the realization of what she was saying hit hard on me.

I was silent for a minute as the weight bore down on my heart.

She continued, "Janey... having you both here today helps. It truly does." After a moment, she added, "I was ten, Miko was fifteen. We had no one else, they'd all been killed."

There was so much unsaid that I couldn't ask the questions. I just got up and hugged her...then stood in the doorway watching the men. She stood with me and smiled tenderly at her husband.

Peter was looking around the living room. Various awards, pictures and memories adorned most of the surfaces. Ginny's bright artwork on the walls, colorful vases, hooked rugs and crocheted blankets made the room feel warmer than atmosphere warranted. He stood in front of an arrangement of faded school pictures. Fifteen or so bright young faces smiled back from the wall.

"You were a teacher, right Mr. Januszewski?"

Miko pushed himself up and stood with Peter at the display of framed pictures.

"Junior High World History... twenty-five years." Miko chuckled.

"I was trying to lead them all to find truth. Some few found it." He raised his bottle toward the wall.

"They were all my kids. I loved them all, yeah? But these here had something bright. They were here to change the world maybe." He lifted his bottle tipped it toward the wall, then took a hearty swallow.