By the time Doug’s open house ended, my mood had cratered. This was the guy I’d been friends with through most of middle school and high school. I knew everything about Doug—the good and the bad—and the change in him this past week made me a little sick to my stomach.
I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. Talking to myself in my head again. If anyone saw me, as I walked home from Doug’s, about a mile away, they’d probably think I was nuts.
I was glad this Sunday was nearly over. It was late summer and the sun would be up for another couple of hours, but I was ready to go to bed. I was hot, sweaty, and my head ached with the memory how Doug had treated me. Suddenly he was the righteous missionary and I needed to be reclaimed now that his mission started in three days and I wasn’t planning to go.
It wasn’t just Doug, though. My parents’ divorce. This lonely, wasted summer. I’d go to bed early tonight and wake up tomorrow to do what? Nothing. I didn’t have a job. My car didn’t run. My mom had disappeared since she had moved out. And my favorite sibling, Liz, was spending the summer, working in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
I rounded the last corner and spotted someone standing at our door. His arm moved as he reached for the doorbell. He looked familiar, but from a distance it was hard to tell for sure. His other arm was supporting something.
My dad’s car was missing from the driveway. David Good, Sr. had probably gone to eat dinner with David Good, Jr.
As a result, the door at my house went unanswered and the man turned to leave. I had gotten closer, called out, and waved. I did recognize the figure now, from church … and, I thought, from Sister Tate’s funeral. My dad had dragged me to her funeral three or four weeks ago.
Brother Tate looked up when he heard me. He stopped short and looked a little awkward, deciding whether to wait for me at the sidewalk or walk forward to meet me.
I jogged the final yards and said, “My dad isn’t home.” Obviously. Dumb thing to say. “Do you want me to have him call you later?”
Brother Tate was shaking his head. “Actually, I’m here to see you.” He held out the thing in his left arm, which I could see now was a Christmas tin, the kind that neighbors take to each others’ homes filled with holiday treats.
I’d gotten close enough and took the tin from him. The look on my face was enough to prompt an explanation.
“When Ruth died she left me with a list of instructions to deliver gifts to certain people. They were unfinished projects she hadn’t been able to get to as she became more and more sick. She wrote your name on an index card and with the card she left her recipe for peanut butter cookies.” He gestured to the tin. “Sorry about the Christmas theme.” He shrugged. “It was in our pantry … only thing I could find on short notice.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, but I remembered a conversation with Sister Tate.
“Noah?”
I stopped short as our class fled the classroom. It’s not that Sister Tate was a bad Sunday school teacher; she was as good as any. It was that we were teenagers. She had been called to teach the sixteen and seventeen year-olds and had been teaching us as best she could for about a year.
My friends were headed down the hallway. We had a few moments to talk before the next meeting started, but I stayed and looked at Sister Tate. She seemed more frail and gray today for some reason and I was impatient to leave.
“Your birthday is coming up, I believe. Seventeen years old, right?” I nodded and glanced toward the hall where my friends’ voices had disappeared. “I just wanted to know, what are your favorite kind of cookies?”
Caught off guard by the question, I thought for a second, shrugged, and said, “I don’t know. Oreos, I guess.”
Sister Tate laughed and patted my shoulder. I barely felt her touch. “No, Dear, I meant homemade cookies,” she said emphasizing the homemade. “I wanted to make your favorite cookies for your birthday.”
“Oh.” The Good home didn’t have homemade cookies very often. Penny Lee Good—or, as she preferred I call her, Mom—wasn’t the domestic type. My sister, Liz had once made peanut butter cookies for a young women’s activity and let me have a couple. They were good. Sister Tate was looking at me expectantly, so I added, “Umm … I don’t know. I guess peanut butter cookies.”
“Oh, wonderful. I still use my grandmother’s peanut butter cookie recipe. She taught me to make those when I was a little girl.” I couldn’t imagine Sister Tate as a little girl, but I nodded. She patted my shoulder again. “Have a good week, Noah. I’ll see you next Sunday.”
Now, I held the second tin of homemade cookies I’d ever received. Sister Tate had remembered my eighteenth birthday, but was too sick to bake these cookies at the time. The Christmas tin felt like a treasure in my arm. It was corny, but I couldn’t help it and thought about the three wise men delivering their gifts.
I was still speechless. We stood there, Brother Tate and I, looking at the ground until I finally mumbled a thank you.
Brother Tate nodded. “I’m not sure if this was more for you or for me, but I know Ruth wanted you to know she thought about you on your eighteenth birthday.” He paused. “We heard about your parents … and that they told you—”
“On my birthday.” I nodded too. “Which was also my high school graduation.”
“Yours is the eighth gift I’ve delivered.” He smiled. “She numbered them. I’m not sure why it’s important, but I resented the whole thing until now. I put off her list and put it off, and finally did the first one. It’s gotten easier each time, but still, I kind of resented that she left me a list of about thirty different … Anyway, until just now I didn’t understand. Ruth was a teacher, Noah. She spent her whole life teaching me to be a better person. Mostly by her example.” He nodded and smiled again. “She’s still teaching me. You were number eight on her list, Noah. There’s something to that.”
I had no idea what Brother Tate was talking about, but between his new smile and the tin of peanut butter cookies in my arm, I was feeling a bit better.
Brother Tate shook my hand. “Take care of yourself, Son. I know life looks a little bleak right now. It does for me too. But the Good Lord and Ruth are watching out for both of us.”
I took the tin inside and to my bedroom. I sat on my bed, opened the lid, and let the scent of peanut butter and sugar fill the room. I knew from my seventeenth birthday that homemade cookies were better fresh, but I wasn’t hungry and I replaced the lid.
Life wasn’t going to magically get better from a tin of homemade cookies. But, I thought, if Brother Tate has something to smile about, eventually I’d find something to smile about too.
