"I know," said Margaret, pulling off her coat. "What would you do without me?"
I was sitting by the window, staring intently at Mr. Crowley's house across the street. Mom asked me two more times for a chair before I stood up, took her key, and headed out the door. It was only in the past few days that she'd let me touch the key again, and then only because she'd bought too much food for Christmas and we'd had to store the extra in the mortuary freezer. I passed Lauren on the stairs.
"Hey, John," she said.
"Hey, Lauren."
Lauren glanced up at the door. "Is she in a good mood?"
"She almost blew streamers out her ears when Margaret said you were here," I said. "She's probably killing a goat in your honor right now."
Lauren rolled her eyes. "We'll see how long that lasts." She glanced up the stairs. "Stick close, okay? I might need backup."
"Yeah, me, too." I took another step downstairs, then stopped and looked up at her. "You got something from Dad."
"No way."
"They got here yesterday—one box for each of us." I'd shaken mine, poked it, and held it up to the light, but I still couldn't tell what it was. All I really wanted was a card—it would be the first news we'd had from him since last Christmas.
I got an extra chair from the mortuary chapel and brought it upstairs. Mom was flitting from room to room, talking out loud to herself as she took coats, and set the table and checked the food. It was her trademark style of indirect attention— not talking to Lauren or giving her any special treatment, but showing that she cared by making herself busy on Lauren's account. It was sweet, I guess, but it was also the embryonic stage of an "I do so much for you and you don't even care" yelling match. I gave it three hours before Lauren stormed out. At least we'd have time to eat first.
Christmas lunch was ham and potatoes, though Mom had learned her lesson from Thanksgiving and did not attempt to cook it herself—we bought the ham precooked, stored it in the embalming room freezer for a few days, and then heated it up Christmas morning. We ate in silence for nearly ten minutes.
"This place needs some Christmas cheer," said Margaret abruptly, setting down her fork. "Carols?"
We stared at her.
"Didn't think so," she said. "Jokes then. We'll each tell one, and the best wins a prize. I'll start. Have you done geometry yet, John?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Nothing," said Margaret. "So there once was an Indian chief with three daughters, or squaws. All the braves in the tribe wanted to marry them, so he decided to hold a contest—all the braves would go out hunting, and the three who brought back the best hides would get to marry his squaws."
"Everyone knows this one," said Lauren, rolling her eyes.
"I don't," said Mom. I didn't either.
"Then I'll keep going," said Margaret, smiling, "and don't you dare give it away. So anyway, all the braves went out, and after a long time they started to come back with wolf hides and rabbit hides and things like that. The chief was unimpressed. Then one day, a brave came back with a hide from a grizzly bear, which is pretty amazing, so the chief let him marry his youngest daughter. Then the next guy came back with a hide from a polar bear, which is even more amazing, so the chief let him marry his middle daughter. They waited and waited, and finally the last brave came back with the hide from a hippopotamus."
"A hippopotamus?" asked Mom. "I thought this was in North America."
"It is," said Margaret, "that's why a hippopotamus hide was so great. It was the most amazing hide the tribe had ever seen, and the chief let that brave marry his oldest and most beautiful daughter."
"She's two minutes older than I am," said Mom, glancing at me with a mock sneer. "Never lets me forget it."
"Stop interrupting," said Margaret, "this is the best part. The squaws and the braves got married, and a year later they all had children—the youngest squaw had one son, the middle squaw had one son, and the oldest squaw had two sons."
She paused dramatically, and we stared at her for a moment, waiting. Lauren laughed.
"Is there a punchline?" I asked.
Lauren and Margaret said it in unison: "The sons of the squaw of the hippopotamus are equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides."
I smiled. Mom laughed, shaking her head. "That's the punchline? Why is that even funny?"
"It's the Pythagorean theorem," said Lauren. "It's a math formula for ... something."
"Right triangles," I said, and looked pointedly at Margaret,
"I told you I'd already done geometry."
Mom thought a bit, and then laughed again when she finally got it. "That's the dumbest joke I've ever heard. And I think the word 'squaw' is offensive."
"Then you'd better think of something better," said Margaret. "Lauren's turn."
"I helped with yours," she said, stabbing a bite of salad, "That counts."
"You then," said Margaret to Mom. "I know you've got something funny in that head of yours."
"Oh, boy," said Mom, leaning her chin on her fist. "Joke, joke, joke. Oh, I've got one."