WE GATHER TOGETHER by Edward L. Woodyard

We Gather Together Chapter One Hundred Nineteen

Sam McCulloch finished the other exposures on the roll of Ektachrome over the Thanksgiving weekend, first at the Turkey Bowl game at the high school where Scott, Drew, Ben and Jack all played the next day, and then at the Christmas parade in downtown Castlebury that Sunday afternoon which produced smiles on all the grandchildren, as well as their parents and uncles.

On Monday, Sam gave the exposed roll of film to Bob Lundgren to develop and make prints. The following day, Doc Kaplan confirmed to Sam that he was cancer-free and would be healthy for at least the next twenty years, barring any accidents or mishaps. Sam was relieved that he didn't have to start thinking about his funeral service just yet, although he already knew that "For All the Saints (Sine Nomen)" would be the recessional hymn; he loved it, and it had also had been the one at his father's service.

In February, Sam and Julia enjoyed her Christmas present of two weeks in the Caribbean. Aunt Emma had been with them for Christmas, alone, her marriage having been annulled when she discovered that the ship's captain who married her was actually a maître d' at a resort hotel in Nassau who colluded with an elderly gigolo to prey on older unattached women.

Scott flew back to San Francisco and disposed of his affairs there, shipping east what he wanted to keep. He and Drew decided that he would remain an independent printer since "it was better that way." He opened an intaglio and custom print operation in Hudsonville, where he lived in a residential wing off the back of the shop that Cara's father helped to build, complete with garage space for Ben's Corvette. Scott also helped Annie open her studio gallery in the refurbished Rialto Arts Center and continued to attend A.A. meetings twice a week. His relationship with Maya didn't go much further once she started work in Manhattan and moved in with her partner, Clarice, in Hoboken where her bonsai tree reminded her daily of her family back in California. However, Scott did get a text at Christmas from Kevin Metzger, the hitchhiker he and Maya had picked up in Wyoming, to say that he had moved back to Idaho and was helping his mother and Aunt Jean on the family farm.

Drew and Cara were too busy being successful in business and with parenting to devote much more time to much else, although Drew ran for fire commissioner and won. The expansion of the printing plant took longer than anyone planned, despite the best effort of Lorenzo Messina to bring it in under budget and before deadline. Even though Drew and Cara took the girls to Albany for that Christmas as prearranged, the holiday was marred when Angelica broke it off with her boyfriend the week before and found her Lexus filled with cement on Christmas morning when he jammed the chute of one of his concrete mixers through a passenger window and released its contents.

Jack and Annie had a second boy in early May whom they named Samuel Lemasters Drexler, for obvious reasons. They both wanted to honor two people they both loved. Jack's former boss Louis Stanton tried to get Jack's new boss, Pamela Milstead, fired as the Worldwide communications director when Worldwide shifted agencies; however, instead of taking her job as he had planned, Louis Stanton only succeeded in getting her promoted to a senior vice president position within Worldwide, resulting in Jack being named to her former position. Soon after, Louis Stanton was removed as a partner of his own company by his father-in-law, who had controlling interest, when Louis was found in flagrante delicto with the receptionist, Michaela Martino, at the Hudsonville Motel.

Ben was awarded a research grant from a biotech company in Manhattan two months before graduation. He received his bachelor's degree from Columbia in May, just after his newest nephew was born. Alison was there for his commencement, along with all of Ben's family, including Aunt Emma; the Donnelly family was there as well, having flown in from St. Louis. Alison's father was in rehab and her parents were still married; the two families liked each other immediately and Scott promised to help Alison's father with his struggle, even long distance. Scott gave him a quotation from Heraclitus that Wendy had given him, "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."

Alison received her summer internship with the publishing company in Midtown which prompted Ben to find a studio apartment in Murray Hill. She would move in with him for her senior year and commute uptown to classes. Upon her graduation a year later, she was offered a full-time position as a junior agent for young adult literature. She told the agency she would start after her honeymoon. Ben and Alison were to have a June wedding at St. Simeon's Episcopal Church in Castlebury where Julia was planning the reception to be held at the McCulloch home. Since their other children all had small weddings, Sam and Julia were not going to be denied a festive occasion; as they approached their fortieth anniversary, they felt as if they were being married all over again.

A month prior to Ben and Alison's wedding, Sam and Julia took Scott to the churchyard at St. Simeon's to show him something they had done. On the back of the McCulloch tombstone was inscribed In Memoriam, under which were engraved two names with dates: Patrick Samuel McCulloch and Wendy Flanagan McCulloch. The three of them put their arms around each other and wept.