Favorite Baby Girl

After the traditional Thanksgiving dinner has been presented and vanquished, Harland Covington retires to the family room to watch some football while everyone else cleans up. He sits in his old faded brown recliner, the one that hugs every contour of his seventy-seven-year-old frame. It’s the same chair that has been the subject of many arguments with his wife, usually with Harland exclaiming, “When something hugs you just right, you don’t throw it out, you hug it back!” The chair is positioned by the fireplace so that the warm dry heat swaddles him like a baby who just had his belly filled while cheers and whistles of the game distort themselves into the soothing white sounds of the ocean lapping against beaches with seagulls flying by as his eyes grow heavy and the images of the game blur into familiar dreams.

In the Covington home, Harland’s after dinner nap is just as much a tradition as the dinner itself. The family has made a game of waking grandpa for dessert. It’s the way grandma wakes him every year. Under Harland’s nose she waves the smell of roasted apples and the sweet spicy essence of cinnamon tied together with splashes of melted butter that soaks into the crispy, flaky crust that is the fragile taste of freedom. An aroma that calls to the taste buds like angels heralding the arrival of a culinary delight that is so simple, yet so elegant that it is the staple of every celebration. Every year Harland is roused from his slumber by the smell of a large piece of America’s favorite baby girl, the apple pie, still warm and with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. To the family’s delight, this year is no different, and he wakes with a giggle and a grin as he does year after year.

As Harland makes his way to the dining room to join the rest of the family, eating his pie as he goes, young Sally asks the question that everyone has never thought to ask, “Grandpa, why does pie make you smile all silly like that?”

“Not just any pie,” he tells his granddaughter as he takes a seat at the table, “apple pie.”

“Now I’m curious, dad,” Marjorie, his youngest speaks up, “what is so special about apple pie?”

Harland looks around the table at all the inquiring faces eagerly awaiting an answer. “It was late fall, 1966. I was in the student hall handling bets on the Cowboys vs. Packers game. The game was running a little long which was making me nervous. I had to be halfway across town to catch a train home in twenty minutes. My father had purchased the ticket and if I missed the train, he was sure to come down on me with the wrath of Zeus. By the time the game concluded, and everyone cashed out, I was left with ten minutes to make it to the station on foot, so I ran. I imagined myself a quarterback, rushing the ball, hurdling benches, rolling off people on the streets, and dodging cars like tacklers, but it was all for naught. When I reached the train station, the train was fading away into the distance. I was left breathless, my lungs searing in pain as they sucked in the cold November air.

“I was left on that platform to yell at the top of my lungs, flail my arms, and stomp my feet like the world’s worst tap dancer caught in a swarm of bees. As I finished my tantrum, I felt drops of rain that quickly turned into a torrent of wind and water. I should have seen it coming. I smelled the freshness of the water in the air, and it had been a dreary, black day, but in the rush of things, I left without an umbrella.

“I hurried my way over to the closest place open, a little diner situated across the street from the train station. It was a small freestanding building that occupied the parking area for the train station. It just had a row of booths under the large front windows and stools at the counter. There wasn’t room for any additional tables. I went in and sat in the farthest corner booth I could find; all sop-and-wet, and rested my head on the table, trying to come up with a more acceptable story to tell my father for missing Thanksgiving than gambling.

‘I thought you could use these,’ a chorus of morning songbirds said to me, breaking me out of my thoughts of self-loathing. I lift my head to see a beautiful brunette with warm, soothing brown eyes standing by my table dressed in peach and white checkered waitress uniform, looking at me empathetically. In one hand was a cup of coffee and there was a towel draped over her forearm. In her other hand was a fresh out of the oven piece of apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. ‘I baked this myself. Everybody says it’s the best. Try some,’ she says as she lays everything down in front of me and takes a seat on the opposite side of the booth.

‘Don’t you have other customers to wait on,’ I asked, shocked that this olive-skinned image of perfection just invited herself to keep me company. She looks around the diner and I look too, wondering what she’s looking for when it dawns on me, I’m the only person in the entire joint. ‘Oh, well thank you for the pie, coffee, and company, I guess,’ I tell her, taking the towel and wiping my face.

‘No problem,’ she says with a soft white smile outlined by succulent pink lips, ‘it’s on the house.’

“I was charmed by this pretty lady and was grinning ear-to-ear until I bit into that pie. Then my countenance changed dramatically. Everything melted in my mouth. Apple, butter, cinnamon, and the crust melded together and exploded. I couldn’t help the change in my expression to one of unexpected pleasure. I rolled my head back to complement her and I caught a glimpse of her bright green eyes with flakes of gold twinkling in the light. Her eyes caused me to pause, I was a little lost in her beauty, but the anticipation on her face snapped me back. ‘It’s like Heaven is crying in my mouth,’ I told her, and her face lit up with pride and delight.

‘Well, if you think that’s good, wait until you taste what I’m cooking for dinner. You have a name,’ she asks, all sure of herself.

‘Harry Covington, and are you inviting me to dinner?’

‘I am. I get off at five,’ and she got up to attend to some of her cleaning. As she walked off, I called after her for her name. ‘Maureen Bennet,’ she said with a smile as she looked over her shoulder at me. Two years later, Maureen Bennet became Maureen Covington when she agreed to be my wife. She hasn’t left my side since,” Harland says as he leans over to kiss his wife.

“So, the smell of apple pie always takes you back to the day you met mom,” says his oldest, Michael.

“Every time, Michael. Every time.”