He continues, “You need anything at all, just say the word.”
She meets his eyes. She’s known Ethan for years, and the man doesn’t go out of his way to avoid scuttlebutt. Tova has never met a sixty-something-year-old man who so enjoys gossip. So he’s surely aware of the estrangement between her and her brother. Tone measured, she says, “Lars and I weren’t close.”
Had she and Lars ever been close? Tova is certain they were, once. As children: certainly. As young adults: mostly. Lars stood alongside Will, both in gray suits, at Tova and Will’s wedding. At the reception, Lars gave a lovely speech that made everyone’s eyes mist over, even their stoic father’s. For years afterward, Tova and Will spent every New Year’s Eve at Lars’s house in Ballard, eating rice pudding and clinking flutes at midnight while little Erik slept under a crocheted blanket on the davenport.
But things started to change after Erik died. Once in a while, one of the Knit-Wits probes Tova, asking what happened between her and Lars, and Tova says nothing, really, and this is the truth. It happened gradually. No blow-out argument, no fist-shaking or hollering. One New Year’s Eve, Lars phoned Tova and informed her that he and Denise had other plans. Denise, his wife, for a time anyway. When they would come for dinner, Denise was fond of loitering around the kitchen sink while Tova was up to her elbows in suds, insisting that she was there if Tova ever needed to talk. Well, it’s not a crime for her to care about you, even if you don’t know her well, is what Lars said when Tova registered her annoyance.
After that fizzled New Year’s, there was a skipped Easter luncheon, a canceled birthday party, a Christmas gathering that never made it past the we should get together state of planning. The years stretched into decades, turning siblings to strangers.
Ethan fiddles with the small silver key dangling from the drawer of the cash register. His voice is soft when he says, “Still, family is family.” He grimaces, lowering his awkward frame into the swivel chair next to the register. Tova happens to know the chair helps his bad back. Not the sort of gossip she seeks out, of course, but sometimes one can’t help but overhear. The Knit-Wits like to natter on about such things.
Tova sighs. Family is family. She knows Ethan means well, but what a ridiculous saying. Of course family is family; what else could it be? Lars was her last living relation. Family, even though she hadn’t spoken to him in years.
“I must get going,” she finally replies. “My feet are quite sore from work.”
“Aye! Your aquarium gig.” Ethan sounds thankful for the change in subject. “Say hello to the scallops for me.”
Tova nods gravely. “I will tell them hello.”
“Let ’em know they’re livin’ the high life compared to their cousins over there, in the seafood case.” Ethan ticks his head toward the fresh seafood department at the back of the store, the one that, with a few local-catch exceptions, offers mostly previously frozen seafood. He leans his elbows on the checkout counter with a bemused look in his eyes.
Tova’s cheeks flush, having picked up on his facetiousness an instant too late. Those scallops in the cold case, rounds of translucent white . . . at least Sowell Bay is too provincial to support a grocery store that sells octopus. She heaves up her grocery bag. Predictably, its contents list toward one end and the jam jars clink again.
Sometimes there is simply a correct way to do things.
With a pointed glance at the new bagging fellow, who is slumped on the deli bench now, jabbing at his phone, Tova sets the bag down and moves the marmalade to the other side of the grapes. The way it ought to have been done in the first place.
Ethan follows her gaze. Then he stands and barks, “Tanner! What happened to stocking the dairy case?”
The kid stuffs his phone in his pocket and stalks off toward the back of the store.
Tova hides a smile at how satisfied Ethan looks with himself. When he notices, he runs a hand over his short wiry beard, which is mostly white these days but clings to a reddish hint. Soon, he’ll let it grow in anticipation of the holidays. Ethan Mack plays a very convincing Scots Santa Claus. Every Saturday in December he’ll sit in a chair in the community center in a polyester costume, taking photos with the town’s children and occasionally a small dog or two. Janice brings Rolo to visit Santa every year.
“Kids need a little direction now and then,” Ethan says. “Then again, I suppose we all do.”
“I suppose so.” Tova picks up her grocery sack again and turns toward the door.