Chapter 6
(October 2024)
Lena wasn’t entirely sure how she ended up on a plane to Louisiana for a week, but stranger things have happened, she supposed. It started when she asked Bucky if he had any plans for Sukkot, and if he wanted to celebrate with her. They’d already spent the high holy days together, the first Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Bucky had observed since before the war, and the first holiday Lena had observed since the blip.
Lena couldn’t remember if Yom Kippur was always that intense, or if it was especially so given the circumstances. Either way, she assumed that Sukkot would be relatively more chill. Maybe they could build a little sukkah on one of their rooftops. One thing about living in the city that hadn’t changed since Bucky’s time was that you had to make do with what you had.
So Lena asked Bucky about Sukkot, and Bucky cursed himself for forgetting. The same week Sukkot fell on, he and Sam had planned a trip to visit Sam’s sister Sarah and his nephews Cass and AJ in Louisiana.
Lena had profusely expressed her understanding and figured that she would maybe solo camp out on her roof, if only for a commemorative night. That was until, a few days later, Bucky called her asking if she wanted to come with to Louisiana and observe the holiday there.
“It might not be a super traditional Sukkot,” Bucky had explained, “but the night sky in Delacroix would make it pretty special.”
“I don’t know Bucky,” Lena had replied, “I don’t want to impose on your trip. Doesn’t Sam want to spend time with just his family?”
“I hear you,” Bucky had acknowledged, “but I talked to Sarah myself and her boys are actually excited by the idea of camping out in the backyard. You wouldn't be an imposition.”
A week later, Lena was on a plane with Sam and Bucky to Delacroix.
They landed in the early afternoon and got to Sarah’s house an hour later. Sam spent the whole car ride there pointing at buildings and telling them what used to be there, or what was still there even after all this time. They passed by his high school and Sam launched into stories about the sports he played and his senior ditch-day where he and a group of his friends spent the day at a lake.
Bucky smiled in fond amusement at Sam’s enthusiasm, clearly having heard his spiel before. Lena gave Sam all of her rapt attention, enthralled by his stories.
When they finally pulled up to Sarah’s house, she was outside on the porch, her body casually leaning against the front door jamb.
“There he is!” She smiled as she walked up to Sam and pulled him into a tight hug. “There’s my little brother.”
Sam scoffed into a grin as he pulled back, “I don’t care about blip technicalities, I was born first and I’ll die your big brother.”
“Uncle Sam!” Cass and AJ screamed as they bounded out of the house and tackled Sam to the ground.
Sarah smiled, amused, and turned to Bucky. “Come ‘ere, Bucky.” She pulled him into a hug of his own. “It’s good to see you.” She gave him a squeeze.
Lena watched on the sidelines by the car as Bucky returned Sarah’s hug earnestly and Sam was clobbered by his young nephews. The feeling that she was intruding bubbled up again, and an anxious voice in the back of her head told her to jump in the driver’s seat of their rental car and floor it back to the airport.
“Lena!” Bucky called, snapping her out of her escape fantasies. He waved her over and Lena took a deep breath as she closed the distance, any chance of escape thwarted. “Sarah,” said Bucky, “I’d like you to meet my niece Lena.”
Sarah smiled and reached out to grab Lena’s hand, not quite shaking it, but holding it in a friendly embrace. “Nice to meet you, I’ve heard a lot about you,” Sarah offered.
“Ditto.” Lena smiled, nerves beginning to slough off her. “Sam and Bucky have told me so much about you and the boys.”
“Only good things, I hope.” She shot a playful glance Bucky's way, who held his hands up in surrender.
“Of course, of course.” He laughed.
“What are y’all plotting over there?” Sam called as he walked over with Cass by his side and AJ on his back.
“The usual,” Sarah quipped back. “Lena, these are my boys, Cass”–she pointed to Cass–“and AJ is the one using my brother as a jungle gym.”
“Hi.” Lena smiled and waved.
“Mom says we’re going to go Jewish-camping with you in the backyard,” AJ blurts out, drawing out a laugh from Bucky and a mortified sound from Sarah.
“That’s not how I said it AJ,” she replied, “I said we are going to celebrate a Jewish holiday by camping out in the backyard.”
“Same thing,” Cass replied, causing Bucky to laugh louder.
“Wait, what am I chopped liver?” Bucky asks, realising the boys haven’t greeted him yet. Cass responded by tackling him much the same way he did Sam.
“Put me down!” AJ demanded of Sam. “I need to help defeat Uncle Bucky.”
Sam was all too willing to oblige.
The sukkah they built that afternoon (if they could technically call it that) had three walls made of canvas strewn from tree branches, with the opening facing a fire pit. Where a thatched roof would typically go, there was a large swath of spanish moss draped over the top. Instead of etrog, there were early navel oranges and satsumas that had dropped from Sarah’s neighbor’s trees strewn about, and instead of lulav, there were braided needle palms lining the borders of the canvas.
It wasn’t traditional by any means, but it was perfect all the same.
After a dinner of red beans and rice (Sam’s favorite) and dessert of banana pudding (Bucky’s favorite), eaten in the sukkah around a plastic folding table, everyone began to gather blankets and lanterns. The folding table and chairs were subsequently folded, and soon replaced by an eclectic spread of linens.
“There’s going to be a cold snap tomorrow night,” Sam remarked. “The first one of the season. We should have a bonfire,” he suggested.
“That would be nice,” Bucky replied, grinning, “romantic.”
“Gross.” Cass scrunched his nose.
“You said it,” Sarah jokingly agreed.
After they lit all the lanterns, everyone found a spot in the sukkah to lay out.
It was cliche to say, but Lena could not believe how well you could see the stars outside the city. Back home, she’d be lucky to see a plane taking a red-eye flight. In Delacroix, she could make out constellations she’d only seen in an astronomy textbook.
“The sky is so beautiful.” Lena remarked.
“I never get tired of it myself,” Sarah agreed.
Cass pointed upwards. “That’s the north star,” he said. “In science class we learned that explorers use it to know which way to go, because it always points north.”
“I want to see a shooting star!” AJ complained.
“No you don’t,” Cass replied, “it's bad luck! Grandma used to say that if you see a shooting star, it means someone’s going to die soon.”
“But I thought people make wishes on shooting stars,” AJ countered.
“Maybe that’s only if you wish that someone would die,” Cass suggested.
“Alright that’s enough of that kind of talk,” Sarah intervened before things got too dark. “Why don’t you ask Uncle Bucky and Lena about the holiday we’re celebrating.”
“Uncle Bucky and Lena,” AJ started, “what is the holiday we are celebrating about?”
Bucky smiled nervousl., “Well, it’s a celebration of the end of the harvest season.”
“It also commemorates the way the Israelites lived during their exodus from Egypt,” Lena added.
“Exodus like in the Prince of Egypt?” AJ asked.
“The very same.” Lena laughed. “See, in the desert they didn’t have a nice house like yours. They had huts, sorta like this one, which were temporary because they were always on the move.”
“That’s kinda sad, that they couldn’t stay long enough to build a home,” Cass remarked.
“They couldn’t build a house, but they had homes,” Bucky commented, “They had each other, it didn’t matter where they slept at night.” He looked over and sent a sweet glance Sam’s way. Sam looked back warmly and leaned in to place a quick peck on Bucky’s cheek.
“Gross.” AJ stuck his tongue out. Sarah and Lena laughed.
The next night, Sam built them a fire and they roasted marshmallows, but the rest of the week it stormed too bad to use the sukkah. The little bit they got out of it was worth it to Lena.
The night before they were due to fly back to New York, Sarah made gumbo for dinner (Cass and AJ’s favorite), and pecan pie for dessert (Lena’s new favorite). Afterwards, Lena helped Sarah with the washing up while Sam and Bucky tucked the boys into bed.
“Thank you again for having me,” Lena remarked as she placed a newly dried dish on a growing pile.
“Don’t even think about it sweetheart,” Sarah easily replied, “Bucky is like family, and you’re Bucky’s family, which makes you our family by extension. You’re welcome anytime.”
Lena smiled to herself. “Thank you.”
“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you...” Sarah passed Lena the last plate. “Bucky doesn’t talk about his past much.” She leant up against the counter. “He’ll make a comment here and there when the mood strikes, but I don’t really know much about his family.”
Lena thoughtfully dried off the plate and carefully placed it onto the now complete stack. “What do you want to know?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” Sarah fiddled with her fingers. “I guess; what kind of home was it? Was it happy?”
Lena sighed deeply through her nose and backed up against the counter.
“Well,” she replied, “I wasn’t there, and all I know is from what my bubbe, my grandmother, told me, but I think, yeah. Overall they were happy. Money was always tight, even after the depression passed. From what I’ve heard, before he was drafted Bucky worked at the docks to help bring home some bread. His sister Frances, the oldest of the three sisters, was only a few years younger than him, and she got a job as a telephone operator after high school to help out too. My bubbe was the baby, but even she tried to get a job.” Lena smiled as a story occurred to her. “One time, she wore pants and a t-shirt, and tucked all her hair into a cap to try and pass as a paperboy.”
“No!” Sarah exclaimed in delight.
Lena nodded her head. “Yeah, she would have gotten away with it too, but she didn’t have a bicycle.”
“She sounds like an incredible person,” Sarah commented.
“She was.” Lena smiled sadly. “Anywho, I got the sense from her that they all loved each other very much, but when money was a problem, which it often was, it caused a lot of tension, especially between their parents.”
Sarah hummed in understanding. “It was like that with us too, when the boat wasn’t doing well.”
Even so, Lena could tell their house had seen a lot of good times. There was love etched in the walls, lingering in the air they breathed. It felt almost like how she remembers her first house had felt, before her mother died, or how she likes to think it did. It's hard sometimes to tell what is memory and what is just wishful thinking. Maybe the Wilson home felt like how her home could have felt if her mother never got sick.
Lena’s eyes had started to mist when suddenly there was a commotion from the other room.
Sarah put down a plate, and Lena followed suit with her rag, and the two stalked into the TV room, where Sam and Bucky were standing in front of the screen.
“What is it?” Sarah asked as she approached.
“Breaking news,” the presenter on the screen seemed to reply, “US senator Eugene Stivak was found shot dead tonight in an alley near Penn Quarter, Washington DC, in what some are speculating to be a mugging gone wrong. The GRC member was in DC for an international summit to take place in the District later this week.”