All aboard
December 1, 2020
Dinner delivery, with a village on the side
by Caroline Langerman
’Twas the week before Christmas and a creature was stirring, jabbing its elbows through my maternity jeans. I was new to Charlotte and nine months pregnant. My little girl’s due date was right after New Year’s, leaving my husband, son and me homebound and anxious as December ticked away.
“That’s an awfully hard birthday,” my mom had said more than once. She knew from experience: Her birthday was January 1, a day for hangovers and regrets, when the shops close and restaurants rest; when weather persists and viruses attack. It’s always the first week of January when ministers everywhere smile weakly and sniff into their microphones before the passing of the peace, “Feel free to nod or smile at your neighbor this morning.”
I was less worried about sad parties than about finding my village in the South. Since we’d moved from New York City earlier that year, I had spent my days alone with my 18-month-old and his trains: pushing Thomas and Percy along puzzle-piece tracks, saying “choo-choo” as I refilled his sippy cup. One night, near the glow of our Christmas tree, we curled up side-by-side on the sofa to read The Polar Express for the first time. He helped me turn the pages as the little boy walked alone into the snow toward a magical ride. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, or the pinch of not believing in magic anymore, but my throat grew tight at the end of the story, when the boy’s sister can’t hear Santa’s bell. I squeezed my son against the part of myself where I used to have ribs.
I knew I needed a community; but asking for it — from strangers? — seemed impossible. In search of villagers, I weaseled my way into a book club I overheard some cute moms talking about at the neighborhood playground. “I love to read,” I said tentatively, my desperation as visible as my son’s full diaper. He was a new walker, falling into the mulch and righting himself every few steps. His physical wobbling seemed to mirror my mom-friend-making — I will do this. I knew it was shameless, the way I accepted their invitation, but this was a last-ditch, last trimester kind of panic.
At the first book club, I was greeted with big smiles and small hot dogs. Lots of the women were pregnant, and there was plenty of Spindrift to fill the wine glasses. The conversation was a mashup of literature and lactation consultants, characters and baby carriers, a marketplace of paperbacks and preschools.
At the end of the evening, one of the women said, “We’ve got to set up your Meal Train!”
“The Meal Train?” I asked.
“Oh, trust me, you want this!” she exclaimed. “We’ll each sign up to bring you dinner one of the nights after your baby comes.”
I did want it. But I had just met these people. Could I really let them cook for me? See me in my penguin pajama pants? Bring their perfect Tupperwares into my imperfect home that was still in boxes?
I was not new to Southern hospitality. In my grandparents’ small town in North Carolina, I had squirted vinegar onto pulled-pork sandwiches on Christmas Eve and breathed the pepper of my uncles’ bloody marys on Christmas morning. I knew cheese straws and Sun Drop as closely as my y’all-saying cousins. The den where my grandad sat chirped with TV golf and crackled with unshelled peanuts. I thought I’d seen a pretty good slice of Southern color.
But I had never seen generosity like the force of 20 women putting on a Meal Train. They weren’t all Southern — like me, many of them had migrated from bigger cities: Chicago, Washington, Atlanta. But what they had in common was a desire to bond, a need not to be blissfully anonymous; and my baby’s awfully hard birthday — which took place on the only snow of the year — became the switch that illuminated a string of light. My husband sent the email of the baby’s arrival, and from my hospital bed I watched the names of new friends populate time slots on the Meal Train app. Next to each name was a little description of what they would bring — casseroles, soups, desserts. The birthday was January 5, the twelfth day of Christmas, but the gifts were just getting started.
The first week home, the baby was crying, but there was chicken tetrazzini — and the bag was not empty! A bottle of Chardonnay. A pint of mint ice cream. A handwritten note.
The baby was spitting up 19 times a day, but there were tacos. The fixings were tucked neatly into individual containers and presented with a pink-ribbon package: a 9-month onesie with a crab on it. The yard was muddy with melted snow; the baby and I were colorless as milk. “A good beach outfit,” the giver said, and we both cracked up like old friends.
The baby was not sleeping, but there was barbecue with fluffy white Hawaiian rolls and baked beans. The saint who pulled the items out of her cooler looked adoringly at my new daughter and said, “My baby was cross-eyed, too.” If I hadn’t felt close to her before, I did now. After she left, I shoved a forkful of barbecue into my mouth and texted my husband, “We need a cooler.”
My husband got the flu and became my third child, but there was homemade chicken-and-rice soup. I set a warm bowl of it by his bedside and took his temperature. “We should have more babies,” he slurred against the thermometer.
My desire for privacy was losing to the desire for connection. It wasn’t so bad for people to see me at my worst — we skipped the chitchat and went straight to sleep deprivation, incision care, marital woes. The meals often came with sides like magnetic baby suits and monogrammed burp cloths. The girls — that’s how they looked in their ponytails and skinny jeans — twirled their car keys and called over their shoulders, “Don’t you dare write a note.” I had never known a village was something I could bring into being with belief. It was like I was stepping outside in the snow, and receiving an invitation.
In New York there had been that serendipitous feeling of spontaneous kindness on every elevator and subway car. But often it was fleeting, leaving me lifted but without leftovers, grateful but without an address to send the thank-you note. That first year, I missed the city, but never less than when my neighbor walked her solar-eclipse sunglasses to my yard so I could peer at the black sun during the babies’ nap. Or when my husband and I saw the stars from our dark-enough sky, because the Queen City had the common sense to tuck herself in and sleep. And especially when, finally, I had the chance to return favors: showing up with Starbucks or leaving fresh peaches on a front step. The years passed, and I became a mother of three. My group of friends grew, changed, deepened. Our hands were full, but our feet were young, and while our kids chased each other, we did our own chase above their heads, tagging each other with humor and goodwill.
Christmas is coming to Charlotte again. A forest of fir trees appears at the farmers market. Magnolia wreaths hug every door. The kids come home from preschool with hand-print turkeys and footprint angels. My 5-year-old son asks to read The Polar Express, and we bring it down from the attic, preparing for those old warm feelings.
But now, there’s another holiday story that leaves a lump of nostalgia in my throat: the story of the Meal Train picking me up after that awfully hard birthday. I can still feel the chill of walking alone in the dark, and just beyond it, the warmth of my new village. SP
