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1. Carter's blueberry apple crumble.
The first week of blueberry season, Carter makes sure his schedule gives him half a day off to pick berries. Buying the long-picked ones at the market isn't the same as picking them yourself, warm on the bush, and bringing home only the best after eating the rest. When he walks into the kitchen (bluelipped, bluetongued, bluefingered) with buckets of berries, Sassy pulls out the big pan for him and goes out on the porch to sit down. This is between a man and his dessert, and God help anyone who gets in the way.
There are always apples in the cooler to choose from, both sweet and tart, and he eyes the berries before picking out a few to complement this year's particular intensity of flavor. Oatmeal and brown sugar and his secret choice of spices that Cam's always trying to guess (and never does sort out, because sometimes Carter adds just a pinch of sweet paprika to be confusing, or a little mace.)
Some of the youngsters are in the kitchen now, teasing for a bite. "Now, Stewart, you behave. Else I'm taking all of this to the station and nobody in this house gets any." But that never happens. Less than fifteen minutes after it's out of the oven, it's on the plates, and he always has to make a second batch to take in on his next shift.
Of course, the fact that his captain loves blueberries doesn't hurt a bit.
2. Cam's baby blankets.
Gran'ma taught him to double-knit, when he was going through a growing spurt and tripping over everything that was nailed down and half of what wasn't. "You've been doing fine with that lacework, son. Now try something a little more complex," she said, handing him her already cast-on needles with two balls of yarn. And for the next week he spent his spare minutes (outside of school, and chores, and throwing Ash in the creek because that's where Ash belonged for flirting with Tina Mae behind the bleachers while Cam was looking for her on the other side of the baseball diamond) sitting on the porch swing with his feet propped up, deciphering the mysteries of making two layers at a time.
"Where'd you get this pattern, Gran'ma?"
"Oh, one of those ladies' magazines, years back. I recollect that Lou Henry Hoover used to knit them in the White House. Can't see as how she had that much time to spare, but things were different then. Her double-knit blankets were huge things. I tried one of those and it stretched to all creation." Gran'ma sat back in the rocker, peering through the glasses on her nose at a recalcitrant bit of lacework. "But it's just right for a baby blanket."
That it is. Cam was just about done with the first one when the twins were born, but since they were twins he held off on giving it away until he'd made another to match. He counted it a huge compliment that Skipper never let go of his 'fluffy" till he was four, and curled up in it every day after kindergarten, and that Spence asked him to knit ties on his own to make it a Superman cape.
3. Everett's first jewel box
Sassy sat back on the living room couch to appreciate the Christmas tree. Al had brought in a beauty, and the children had done such a nice job decorating it. She heard rustling in the hallway and closed her eyes so she wouldn't officially see some of the young'uns slipping in to drop off presents behind the growing pile on the floor. The steady rhythm of the canes made her open them again.
Everett was standing in front of her, his carry-bag slung across his front. He sat down on the big carved chair by the couch, reached into the bag and took out something wrapped in her favorite red paper. "I thought you might like this one in private," he said. "More or less."
She accepted it and felt something firm through the paper. It took a minute to slip the paper off and set it aside.
The box was hickory, satin-smooth, rounded on all its edges and corners, brass-hinged on one side. Her initials were carved into the top. When she opened it she found the inside was red velvet, the same red as the wrapping had been, and on the velvet lay a smaller box -- holding a pair of small ruby earrings.
"I've been a bear this year," he murmured. "You deserve better."
"I almost expected a box of bearberries," she said in her tenderest voice.
"Out of season." His eyes twinkled at her.
He still could take her breath away when he kissed her.
She took out the old plain gold earrings she'd inherited from Aunt Sally and put in the ruby studs, and she started wearing her hair behind her ears. The box went on the mantel in the bedroom, next to their wedding photo. And when she overheard some of the teen-aged and older relatives asking Everett if he could make jewelboxes for them to give their sweethearts, she smiled.
4. Bayliss's cane
Bayliss watched young Cameron get out of the rental car and struggle upright on his aluminum cane, the one the VA had gotten him. He shook his head. Damn VA hadn't ever learned, not since Vietnam. All the canes were only moderately adjustable to standard heights; they were lightweight enough, but the wrong length of cane could put near-unbearable cramps in a person's back. No wonder Cam looked so tired.
It took only a little finagling, with the help of two of the smaller children and that young man J.D. whom Cam had brought as a guest (and no, it was none of his business but anyone could see that Cam thought the sun rose and set on him, and that caring was returned, so why was everyone so het up about it? All that interference wouldn't help anything...), to get the offensive aluminum contraption away from Cam during a nap so he could measure it. He checked Cam's height against his father's height by eye, as they stood together in the hall on the way to dinner, and later that day went out to the wood stock in the barn. Oak was too heavy for the length he'd need. Ash splintered. Pecan would be good, but he didn't have a long enough piece. Osage orange was pretty, a sweet light green, but it wasn't Cam's color. Bayliss hesitated, then pulled out a length of blackthorn. It had dried hollow, but it was sturdy and lightweight, and it was long enough. He smoothed down the thorns and varnished the wood. Then he carved a maple grip to put on the top, big enough to be comfortable under Cam's broad hands, and added a metal loop and strap for hanging it up if desired.
When young J.D. handed Cam the package a month later (he'd put it into a long florist's box purely to be confusing), and Cam unwrapped and opened it, Bayliss thought for a moment that he'd overstepped his place. Cam looked like he was biting back deep emotions. But he flashed Bayliss one of his heartfelt smiles, handed the offensive aluminum contraption to J.D., and stood up with his weight on the new walking stick -- and straightened his shoulders to bring himself to his full height, as he had not been able to do before. And that in itself made it all worthwhile.
5. Maria's bowl
The first time most Black Mountain folks got to see Maria's pottery was at a show in Asheville. She'd worked at a gallery there for a while, to get a sense of what people were buying, before submitting her work for sale. All the pots and bowls and jars and mugs with the smoked blue glaze sold like hotcakes that year, and it gave her a little extra money to try something different for the open holiday show. She built more mugs and plates, in the famous smoked blue, but also sweet-rose-patterned bowls and wickerlike latticework bread baskets. And just for fun, she'd thrown some big old-fashioned bowls, enormous things difficult to keep from flopping on the wheel, and given them an antique salt glaze just for the soft rusty colors it produced.
When the Mitchells came down from the mountain to see what this girl that Susie Mae liked was doing with the clay she dug out back on the property, they clustered around this display or that, and pointed and exclaimed, and bought and bought and bought. And when they left, a couple of hours later, the shelves looked mostly empty, and Maria didn't know whether to feel embarrassed or happy.
Susie Mae knew that look. "You be proud, sweetheart. They like you. And they like your work."
"I don't want to make money off your kinfolk," Maria murmured, worried.
"Don't worry about it. They're always looking for something to send to the ones who can't make it back, and your ceramics feel like home, just as I told you."
Susie Mae must have been right. When she went over on Christmas Eve, early in the day, to help with the bread baking (she liked to bake, and she was good at it but it was hard to bake well for only one), Aunt Sassy had handed over that biggest salt-glazed bowl, big enough to hold the dough for eight loaves of bread at once, or six apfelkuchen. "You know, I can't imagine how I did without it," Aunt Sassy said. "Honey, you know where everything is, don't you? Spencer, you get some sweet tea for Maria; woman can't make good bread if she's thirsty." The next day six people asked her for the apfelkuchen recipe, and three more asked if she'd make them breadbowls. And Aunt Sassy's oldest, Cam, said, "Y'know, I wish I could make bread that well. I'm better at pies. You want to swap recipes? I'm sure I'm missing something, somewhere. No, you shut up, Ash. I don't want to hear it." He had the same smile as Susie Mae, warm and open, impossible to mistrust, and seeing it made her so happy.
Maria made a note in her mind that Susie Mae was always right about kin.