tell us! what does your family do for thanksgiving?

[skellorg]

i am: taking a break
listening to: it's very quiet in here
drinking: daily dose of dr. pepper

tomorrow is thanksgiving in the states (i only feel prompted to mention this because several on my flist are in the UK, and i remember having to explain to another friend in the UK several years ago exactly what thanksgiving is.) one of my personal thanksgiving traditions is to stop at some point during the preparations, cooking and cleaning on the day before to sit down and read the thanksgiving scene in anne tyler's a patchwork planet. to me, it's every bit as perfect a picture of thanksgiving as anything norman rockwell ever painted. i typed it up a few years ago to share with yet another friend, and thought i'd share it here.


"We are probably the only family in American eating a potluck Thanksgiving dinner," my mother said, gazing around the table.

"Oh, surely that can't be true," Gram said. "Good heavens! Many's the time, in the old days, I was asked to bring my marshmallow-yam casserole when Aunt Mary had the dinner at her house."

"That's one kind of potluck, Mother. The organized kind, where the hostess assigns a dish to each guest. But I'm talking about the other kind; catch as catch can. Pot luck, with the emphasis on 'luck.' Who else would be doing this?"

Mom's own dish was a redundancy; that's why she was annoyed. She had made one of her famous pumpkin chiffon pies, which turned out to be what Wicky had made too. (Using Mom's recipe, I could see how that might have been a faux pas.) Also, there was no turkey. At Jeff's insistence, he and Wicky were hosting the dinner this year, and so everybody assumed that they would supply the turkey. But they hadn't. Wicky said her oven was too small for a turkey that would feed ten people. It seemed all her efforts had gone instead into the decorations; twists of crepe paper in harvest gold and orange festooning the dining room, and an entire family of Pilgrims marching the length of the table, with lighted candlewicks sticking up out of their heads. Plus, at the start of the meal she had made us all join hands and sing "Come Ye Thankful People, Come." Except that she and Sophia were the only ones who knew the words beyond the very first line.

Our menu was: two pumpkin chiffon pies, Gram's marshmallow-yam casserole, Sophia's Crock-Pot Applesauce Cake, and a salad that Opal had tossed with a vinaigrette dressing. This was nice for Opal, because we were all so glad to see something nonsweet that her contribution was the hit of the day.

Me, I'd chosen the easy way out and brought four bottles of wine. I guess I could have complained myself, since I had specifically purchased a wine designed to complement turkey. But hey. This way, I figured, I would probably get to carry a couple of bottles home with me.

"I did inquire," my mother was saying. "I asked Wicky at least two weeks ago: 'Wicky, what category of food should I bring? But, 'Oh, whatever you want,' she said. 'I'm sure it will all work out.'" Mom trilled her fingers in a breezy manner, apparently mimicking Wicky. "'We'll each of us just do our own thing,' was what she told me. 'That will be much more fun, don't you feel?'"

I'd have taken umbrage, if I were Wicky, but Wicky smiled obliviously and handed J.P. a carrot disk from the salad.

"Oh, well," my grandpa said. "The important thing is, we're together. That's what Thanksgiving is all about! Everyone gathered together. Wouldn't you agree, Jeffrey?"

My father said, "Eh? Ah. Yes, indeed," and poured himself more wine. He tended to remove himself when Pop-Pop started one of his homilies.

"And we've all got our health, knock on wood. Mother's blood pressure's under control; my eyesight's no worse for the moment. Opal is with us this year, and she's turned into a young lady! J.P.'s been upped to a booster seat . . ."

Evidently Pop-Pop was proceeding in order around the table. Some Thanksgivings he went by age, but today he began with Gram, at his left (wearing her sequined turkey T-shirt), and then himself, and then Opal and J.P. on his right - J.P. in a miniature business suit, already smeared with pumpkin.

Next came my brother, at the head of the table. "Jeff is on the road to being a stock-market millionaire," Pop-Pop said, and Jeff leaned back with a genial laugh and laced his hands across the front of his suit. The successful patriarch; that must be the image he was aiming for. I don't know why I hadn't understood that till now. The only patriarch in Jeff's acquaintance had been our Grandfather Gaitlin, a big-bellied man who'd loved a good cigar, which would explain why Jeff was nursing an imaginary paunch and letting his laugh trail off in an emphysemic wheeze. "Well, not exactly a millionaire," he was saying through a smoker's cough. No wonder he was so keen on hosting all family gatherings!

Pop-Pop moved on to Mom. "Margot here's the new chairwoman of the Harbor Arts Club," he said, while Mom gave a Queen Elizabeth smile, first to her left and then to her right. "And Jeffrey, of course, continues to set an example for all of us with his philanthropic activities ..." My father winced, bowed, and took another sip of wine.

I never could tell who, exactly, Pop-Pop was conveying his information to. We ourselves already knew it. God, maybe? I glanced up at the ceiling.

"Sophia, Miss Sophia, is sharing our Thanksgiving for the very first time," Pop-Pop said, "but we're hoping it won't be the last, by a long shot." Sophia flushed and directed a smile toward her bosom. She was wearing her hair drawn up high on her head today, which made her look formal and elegant.

"We credit Sophia with helping a certain young man begin to settle down," Pop-Pop said. "Speaking of who ..." And then it was my turn.

"Didn't I always tell everyone Barnaby would be fine? He's a good, good boy," Pop-Pop said, leaning across the table to gaze earnestly into my face. "In fact, I think some might say he's found his angel. Hah? Hah?" And he sat back and looked around at the others. "Wouldn't you agree?"

But no one would take him up on that (a Kazmerow had no business tossing around the subject of the Gaitlins' angels), and so he proceeded to Wicky. "And last but not least, our charming hostess. Nazdrowie, Wicky!"

"To Wicky," we chimed in, raising our glasses. (All except for J.P., who was busy with a marshmallow.) Even Opal shyly held up her Pepsi can. Wicky said, "Oh, go on. I didn't do anything much!"

I saw Dad give Mom a look from under his eyebrows, warning her not to second that.

If a meal is mainly dessert, it's hard to know when it's over. Wicky got up to clear, finally, but she refused all offers of help, and so the rest of us went on sitting around the table. I saw my reserve bottles of wine rapidly disappearing. In fact, I suspected Jeff was getting tipsy. "Pass that bottle on down!" he said at one point, in his new, fat-man voice. "Who's hogging the bottle?" And when it turned out to be finished, he sent me for some of his own private stock from the basement. Or the "cellar," was what he called it. "Fetch me a cabernet from the cellar, will you, Barn? There's a good fellow." His accent was becoming just the teeniest bit British.

I rose obediently - I was feeling very sober and responsible, maybe on account of Pop-Pop's speech - and went through the kitchen and down the stairs to the basement. A fully stocked wooden wine rack sat next to the washing machine. I picked out the most expensive-looking cabernet I could find and climbed the stairs with it.

In the kitchen, Wicky was scraping plates. Her dress was a beige knit, cut narrow as a tube, and she was standing in a way that made her rear end look like two small, tight grapefruits nudging against the fabric. They just called out to be cupped by two hands. They ordered it. I got one of my irresistible urges, and I set the wine bottle on the counter and took a step closer.

My mother said, "Barnaby."

My heart stopped.

I whirled around and said, "What? I was just getting wine! Jeff asked me to bring up some wine."

"Yes, but I don't think we need it, do you? We've all had more than enough," Mom said.

"Oh," Wicky said, turning. "Should I be making coffee?"

"Let me do it," Mom told her. "You go out and sit awhile."

"Why, thank you. That's so nice of you!" Wicky said.

Of course, she had no idea that Mom claimed the coffee tasted more like tea when Wicky made it.

I grabbed the wine bottle and started to follow Wicky into the dining room, but Mom laid a hand on my arm. "Barnaby," she said again.

"Yes, ma'am," I said. I still wasn't sure if she'd guessed what I'd had in mind for Wicky's two grapefruits.

"I want you to take this back," Mom said, and from somewhere in her clothing she brought out a folded powder-blue check.

I said, "Huh?"

"It's your money."

"What money?"

She pressed it into my hand. I think it was because it was in the form of a check that I was so slow on the uptake. First I set the wine bottle down on the counter; then I unfolded the check and peered at it for a moment. Pay to the order of Barnaby Gaitlin, Eight thousand seven hundred and no/100 dollars.

"Why?" I asked her.

"I've decided not to keep it."

This didn't thrill me as much as you might expect. I went on studying the check, hoping it would tell me something further. The space after For had been left blank. If only she had filled it in! I raised my eyes, finally.

"Why?" I asked her again.

"Oh . . .," she said, and she turned away and reached for the percolator. "It just seemed the right course of action," she tossed over her shoulder.

"But you've always said I should pay it back."

"Oh . . . "

"You said that was the right course of action."

She noisily ran water into the percolator.

"You just want me to stay fixed in my accustomed role," I said. "You would feel more comfortable if I went on being indebted."

"Don't be absurd," she told me, shutting off the water.

"Now that I've repaid you, you've got nothing to hold over me."

"That's absurd. You can never repay me."

"Pardon?"

She wouldn't answer. She made a big show of measuring out the coffee.

"I just did repay you," I said.

She kept her lips clamped shut.

"Eighty-seven hundred dollars," I reminded her. "Every cent. In cold cash."

She wheeled on me. She said, "Do you honestly believe money will make up for what I went through? Visiting all our high-class neighbors, throwing myself on their mercy, pleading with them not to press charges?"

"I never asked you to do that," I said.

"'Well, Mrs. Gaitlin, we'll need to think this over,'" she said, putting on a pinched and simpering tone of voice. "'We'll need to give it some thought,' they told me. That insufferable Jim McLeod: "'I doubt if you fully comprehend, Mrs. Gaitlin, what a rare and valuable object that ivory happened to be.' They loved to see me beg! Upstart Margot Gaitlin. It goes to show they were thinking: you can take the girl out of Canton, but you can't take Canton out of the . . . 'Just look at her son, if you need proof,' they said. Oh, always you were my son. I suppose I felt that way myself. Jeff was more related to Dad, but you were related to me. You I had to personally apologize for. You think you can repay me for that? You can never repay me. Not with eight thousand, not with eight hundred thousand! Take your money back."

"Don't you wish," I told her, and I ripped the check in two. Then I made confetti of it, ripping it again and again and letting the little pieces flutter to the floor. My mother just stared - her mouth open, a spoonful of ground coffee suspended between us.

I had imagined that we'd been shouting, but when I stormed into the dining room I realized none of the others had heard us. They were still lounging around the table, and all Jeff said when he saw me was, "Where's the wine, bro?"

"Oops," I said, and I made a U-turn into the kitchen and retrieved the bottle. It was no affair of mine how much he drank.

The Pilgrim candles were headless now, their shoulders curly-edged bowls of wax. They looked like torture victims. Wicky rose and blew them out, saying, "Let's adjourn to the living room, shall we?" By the time Mom brought in the coffee tray, I was on the couch, playing a game of cribbage with Opal. I waved the tray off without looking up, and no one thought anything of it.

Wicky was rocking J.P. to sleep, humming something tuneless. Jeff was poking the fire. (Another patriarchal activity, I guessed.) Sophia sat next to Gram on the love seat, and Dad occupied the one remaining chair. So when Pop-Pop returned from a trip to the john, he had to nudge me down the couch a ways. "Ah, me," he said, sinking heavily into the cushions. "How's the car, Barnaby?"

As luck would have it, my mother approached him just then with the tray. "Coffee, Daddy?" It's decaf."

"Now, what the hell do I want decaf for? What's the point of coffee if it don't have any kick to it?" But he helped himself to a cup and stirred in several spoonsful of sugar, while she waited.

"Jeffrey?" my mother said next, heading toward Dad.

"Yes, thanks. I will have some."

She bent to rest her tray on the lamp table beside him. "Barnaby won't let me give him back his money," she told him.

"Eh?" my father said.

"His eighty-seven hundred. He won't take it."

I felt Sophia glance over at me, but the others paid no attention.

"I tried to give it back to him," my mother said, "but he tore up the check."

"We'll discuss this some other time, shall we?" my father said pleasantly.

"I want to get this settled, though."

"Another time, I told you."

"What other time? We hardly ever lay eyes on him!"

"Margot," my father said. "Do you suppose we could make it through one holiday without your tiresome fishwife act?"

Wicky stopped humming. There was a pause, and then my mother lifted her tray and proceeded back to the kitchen at a dignified pace. A second later, we heard the tray slamming onto a counter. A faucet started running. Dishes started clattering. Wicky looked over at Jeff, but he minutely shook his head, and so she stayed seated.

Gram cleared her throat. "Sophia dear!" she said. "Tell us! What does your family do for Thanksgiving?"

here's wishing those of you who celebrate - and yours - a very happy thanksgiving. :)

today's reading: i'll be back to garp tonight.