Dec 4, 2014 3 min read

All we wanted on that day after the feast was a piece of pie.

We had two big gatherings: My sister hosted one and we hosted the other. When I texted her to ask what I could bring, she wrote back “pies.”

There would be 19 people, so in our geometry book, that meant if each pie were cut into six pieces, and if every person were to have two pieces of pie, then we would need 6.3 pies.

So off we drove, over the river and through the woods with pumpkin, apple and berry.

Nobody, of course, eats two pieces of pie when there is all that turkey and stuffing and my sister’s beloved pretzel Jello salad. And so after dinner, we drove back home from my sister’s with three pies.

That would have been the perfect dessert plan for the second dinner: We’d freeze the pies and bring them back out. Except that the week before all our guests asked what to bring and we said pies!

Imagine the mathematical possibilities. Our three pies were joined by about eight others of all kinds. We didn’t have blackbird pie but we did have blackberry. There were so many pies we started storing them atop the piano, and when that filled up we took a few up to the second-floor landing.

My favorite part of any family gathering is dessert, when all the goodies are arrayed on the big dining room table and people pull up chairs. The table was so crowded with baked goods and pretzel Jello salad that people had to balance plates on their laps.

My mom had made a cake in a pan the size of a large suitcase. That, along with the pretzel Jello salad, pulled focus away from the pies. And so, at the end of the evening, we had six or seven pies, some untouched and some missing only a piece or two.

And so we handed them out like party favors. Thanks for coming, and here’s a pie. But, with bellies round and full, most people declined.

“Around this time tomorrow, you will be wishing you had a bit of pie,” I said. But people waved me off and went to their cars.

We were down to the last family, and four pies. I would give them two pies and put the other two into the freezer for another time. We helped the last family load up their car and we hugged them goodbye.

Around the same time the next day, it was time for a piece of pie. We couldn’t find it. I looked in the freezers, upstairs and down, in the fridge, in the cabinets, on the piano. Nada.

Had the dogs gotten to it? Had I absentmindedly put a pie in the laundry room?

Had my math been wrong? We called that last family. They arrived home with four pies, not two.

“We’ll put them in the freezer for the next time you are here to visit,” they said.

And that is how, on a holiday that started with 35 pies, we ended up hungry for just one piece. Go figure.