Travis extends his hand, smiling. “So glad you could come, Bud. Lauren was excited to track you down.”
Bud gives a sheepish smile. “Well, I don’t know how helpful I was…”
“Very,” Lauren says, closing the door. “Come on in. Would you like an appetizer? I have a delicious chocolate chip cheeseball with gingersnap cookies and a Vidalia onion dip with tortilla chips.” She leads him into the kitchen and hands him a small plate for the appetizers, which she has laid out on the table. “Here’s some punch. Or I have tea or water.”
“Punch is fine,” Bud says. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had punch. My daughter-in-law says it’s too sugary and I shouldn’t drink it.”
Lauren pats Bud on the arm. “It’s a special night and I won’t tell her.” She hands him a small glass of punch. “This is the table I told you about. See, this drawer contained all the recipes.”
The doorbell rings, and Travis walks to the front door as Bud stands and admires the table. “And you bought this at a garage sale with the recipes in the drawer?” he asks Lauren.
“No, no. I bought it from a man named Larry who found it at a garage sale years ago. He refinished it.”
“Bud?”
Bud and Lauren both turn toward the voice that came from the kitchen doorway. Bud takes a moment looking at the man and pieces memories together. “John?”
Lauren doesn’t know this gentleman who looks to be seventy-something. She watches as John walks to Bud and sticks out his hand. “Look at you after all these years. I’m so sorry about Elaine.” He glances to the doorway and says, “You remember my daughter…”
“Gigi,” Bud says, smiling. “Of course.”
Lauren smiles. “Gigi?”
“My parents called me Andi,” Andrea says, standing next to her husband, Bill. “My brother tried to say Andi but it came out as Angie. Then it morphed into Gigi and it stuck. Like glue. Forever. Until I had kids and then I put my foot down,” she says, chuckling.
“I’m so sorry,” John says, moving to Lauren. “You must be Lauren! Andrea has spoken so highly of you and said you’re about to be parents any day now,” he says, smiling at Travis. “Boy or a girl?”
“It’s going to be a surprise,” Lauren says.
“That’s great,” John says. “Sorry to be tagging along unexpected. We just drove in today.”
“Not at all,” Lauren says. “The more the merrier! I told Andrea we have plenty of food.”
John smiles. “It’s so good to see Bud after all these years!”
“How do you know Bud?” Andrea asks Lauren.
“I don’t,” Lauren says. “I tracked him down.”
“Like a bloodhound,” Bud says, winking at her.
“Remember that day in the tutoring room when I asked if you bought milk from a local farmer?” Lauren asks. Andrea nods. “I wish I had asked you if you knew a farmer named Bud! That would have solved everything a whole lot quicker!”
“Solved what?” Andrea says, noticing the front door opening. “This is my mom, Joan, by the way.” A simple-looking woman in her seventies is carrying a Christmas gift bag as she follows Travis into the kitchen, smiling. “Mom, this is Lauren.”
Joan hands the gift bag to her. “I forgot this in the car and had to get it. We can’t drop in like this without bringing you something.”
Lauren takes the bag, smiling, as Andrea says, “Mom, you remember Bud Waters.”
Joan turns to Bud and her face opens wide in surprise. “Bud Waters! How many years has it been? I still complain that even the organic milk I buy in the store is nothing like what you sold to us.” Lauren can barely contain herself watching and listening to them catch up.
“Solved what?” Andrea asks Lauren again.
Lauren looks at Bud, smiling, and waits for a break in their conversation. “Well, I found some things, but I knew the owner would want them back.” She steps to the table. “It took me a while, but I hoped Bud could help.” Everyone glances at Bud, confused. “I opened my phone at his house, and he happened to see a picture of Andrea, whom he recognized as Gigi.” Andrea looks surprised, listening as Lauren opens a drawer under the table. “I think the owner of these is Andrea.” She pulls out the recipes as John, Andrea, Bill, and Joan’s mouths drop open.
Andrea rushes to grab the recipes from Lauren. “It can’t be.” She shuffles through them. “Mom! Oh my gosh! Your recipes! Dad! It’s your table!” Her eyes fill with tears and she snaps her head to look at Lauren. “Where did you … How did you find…”
“I bought the table from Larry,” Lauren says. “Remember? Miriam went with me and we found it.”
“How did Larry have the table?” Andrea asks, sitting down on a chair and running a hand over the tabletop.
“He said he bought it at a garage sale years ago and it was in bad shape. Covered in nail polish, had dings in it and whatever. Said the drawer was sealed shut. It sat in his shop for a couple of years before he refinished it.”
Andrea shakes her head in disbelief. “It was all a mistake. Mom and Dad gave me the table right before Bill and I married. Dad knew how much I loved that table and everything it meant.” She stops, recalling that difficult time forty years earlier. “He was making this table when Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer that ended up moving to her lungs.” Her voice catches and she uses a finger to swipe beneath an eye. “This table inspired Mom to learn how to cook from recipes my grandmother had given her. My brother, Christopher, and I would jump in and help, and then Mom got sick and Dad helped, Grandma helped, and people from Elmore Community Church helped and they didn’t even know us!” She looks at Joan and John, remembering. “What a scary, horrible time for my parents, but the love and the help that our family received is unbelievable to this day.”
“Your recipes don’t mention anything about cancer,” Lauren says to Joan.
Joan shakes her head. “No. It was such a huge part of our lives for so long that I didn’t want Andrea to look at a recipe and think of the cancer, but rather to think of the person who gave me the recipe. We gathered a lot of recipes from wonderful cooks during that time,” she says, smiling.
“But how did the table get lost in the first place?” Travis wonders out loud.
Andrea sighs. “The lid to my recipe box had broken and I put the recipes in the drawer just until I could replace the box. Then we…” She looks up at Bill.
“We were moving to a different house,” Bill says. “We had a garage sale with some neighbors, and I don’t even know how it happened, but somehow the table that was set aside for the move got sold, and Andrea was devastated.”
“She cried for days,” Joan says.
“Weeks!” John adds.
“Because the table you had made was gone—and all of Mom’s recipes!” Andrea says, running her hand again over the top of the table.
“Larry thinks it was probably used for children,” Lauren says. “And they probably never bothered to try to open the drawer once they managed to seal it shut. He said he couldn’t open it at all and had to work away at it, which is the only explanation for why the recipes were still in there.”