My First Thanksgiving

For my first Thanksgiving as host, I bought the biggest turkey they had in the store. I needed it because my family was full of big eaters. There were only six of us, but I wasn’t sure the thirty-pound turkey would be enough. You want to know what’s really funny, though? None of us was overweight.

Not that we were healthy, mind you. No, most of us had been told we needed to exercise more, stop smoking and drinking, and watch our cholesterol. That’s why I got an extra big turkey. It was low fat so I thought it would be good for us even if we ate too much.

It turned out I was the only one listening to the doctor. Everyone else was really disappointed when I presented turkey, a vegetable tray, and sugar free ice cream for the meal. 

“What the hell is this?” My father demanded. “It’s Thanksgiving. Where’s the pecan pie? The stuffing and rolls?”

“I decided to make a healthier version, Dad.”

“Why would you do that?” Mom asked. “Who wants a healthy Thanksgiving meal?”

“We may not want it,” I told them, “but we need it. All of our doctor’s told us to eat better or we’d be on pills soon. None of you want that do you?”

They all grumbled and shook their heads, which was as good as I would get. 

We said the blessing and then everyone loaded their plates. I will give them credit, they tried everything before complaining again. 

“This taste like cardboard,” dad said of the turkey. 

“That’s because I didn’t lather it in butter or sugar like usual,” I informed him.

“This rabbit food isn’t going to fill me up,” my brother said after eating a carrot stick off the vegetable tray. 

“Your heart will thank you,” I replied. 

I didn’t tell them, but I didn’t like the food either. It seemed that leaving the fat and salt out of food made a big difference to the way it tasted. Still, I was determined we were going to eat healthy. 

Until I tried the sugar free ice cream.

Have you ever tried that stuff? Well, don’t. It’s nasty. I promise I almost gagged it was so bad. 

Everyone looked at me and tried to hide their smiles, but it was impossible. They were enjoying my predicament too much. Soon, they were all laughing out loud and asking me if I still thought Thanksgiving should be healthy. 

Finally, I got rid of the awful taste of the ice cream by eating a mouthful of turkey, but the turkey was so dry that it choked me going down. 

After my dad did beat my back half to death, the turkey came back up, along with the ice cream, unfortunately. 

I’d had enough. To hell with eating healthy on Thanksgiving. We could all start dieting the next day. 

I grabbed my coat and everyone else followed. We found the nearest McDonald’s and all upsized everything. The cashier asked us why we were there and not at home eating Thanksgiving dinner. 

I told her about the dry turkey, raw veggies, and the nasty sugar free ice cream. She looked like she was going to be sick by the time I finished. I’m sure she wouldn’t ask any more customers why they were there instead of at home. 

We gulped down our meals and went back for dessert. We were just finishing up when my grandmother called from Ohio. She couldn’t believe it when James told her where we were. I heard him go into the same long story I had about our Thanksgiving dinner, laughing as he explained in great detail about me throwing up, before he told her, “And that's why we all ate hamburgers.”

Yesterdays

Pictures of days gone by covered the wall. Birthday parties, graduations, family reunions, and everyday snapshots surrounded Katy.

Katy looked at them and smiled. 

She remembered everything that happened in each photograph. Every smile, every sunrise, every wish before the candles were blown out. 

Her family watched her and cried.

Katy looked at the others in the room and wondered why they were so sad. All the pictures were of happy times. They should be smiling, not crying. 

Of course, Katy didn’t know what their family was like…

Picture Perfect

Finally finished my story for this weeks Three Word Wednesday prompt. It is also my story for the letter P of the A to Z Challenge. Hope y'all enjoy it.

Clara stared at the photograph. The man and woman gazed happily into each other’s eyes. The children were laughing while trying to hold a small ball of fur still. Dogwoods lined the walkway that led to the cherry, red front door of a modest little house. 

No matter how hard she tried, Clara couldn’t recall the day in the picture. She kept closing her eyes and willing her mind to go back to that time, a time when happiness wasn’t just something other people talked about, but it was elusive. 

Maybe happiness had dependence on happiness, she mused. With it missing from her life now, she could no longer even recall what it felt like. 

She noticed the photograph was starting to rumple around the edges. Of course, how could it not since she held it every day. 

It was the last picture she had of all of them together. 

“Are you ready?” George asked from the doorway.

“Just a minute,” Clara replied, and then slipped the photograph back under her pillow.

George and Clare rode in silence. Clara wasn’t surprised by George’s lack of communication. It had been years since they actually talked to each other, more than just what was required. 

 “Did you get the book?”

“Yes,” Clara answered. “I picked it up yesterday.”

She knew Janie would enjoy the book. The pictures anyway. It had been a long time since Janie would read the words. 

Clara remembered when Janie stopped reading. Her sister, Rebecca, had run away from home three weeks before and they had no idea where she was. Janie had taken it badly. First, she stopped talking to anyone. Then, a week earlier, she stopped leaving her room, and two days before, she tore every book she owned up and tossed them out the window.

It wouldn’t have been a big deal for a ten-year-old to refuse to read, except Janie had been reading since she was three and, before Rebecca ran away, was never seen without a book in her hand. 

The middle of the next week, they committed Janie to the hospital after she quit eating. She’d been in one hospital or another for the last four years now. Rebecca was still missing, and Janie, while she would now look at books with pictures, still wasn’t reading.

Clara believed Janie would get well when Rebecca came home, but she had given up hope of that happening a long time ago.

She and George spent their nights in the same house, although in separate bedrooms, and their days living separate lives. He went to work at the law firm and her to the daycare. He couldn’t understand why she wanted to be around other children when they had lost both of their own. She couldn’t understand why he didn’t.

But that was not the only thing they disagreed on. Far from it. It would be easier to count the things they did agree on these days, than the things they didn’t. Clara was glad George still went to see Janie with her. For a while, she feared he would stop.

He had proved he could still surprise her one other time as well. She had found a receipt for a private detective in his desk drawer one evening a few years back. When she asked George about it, he told her he’d been paying the guy ever since Rebecca disappeared, and would continue to do so until she was found. As far as Clara knew, he still sent the weekly checks, even though there had been no sightings of Rebecca in three years. 

When they arrived at the nurses’ station, Nurse Andrews stopped them. “We received this for Janie yesterday, but thought we’d show it to the two of you first.”

Clara opened the letter, and with George looking over her shoulder, started to read. By the time she finished, tears were streaming down her and George’s faces and they were hugging each other. 

Clara ran her fingertips over the return address, which read: 

Rebecca James
452 Fountain Blue Lane
Rock Creek, MN 08766

It seemed that even though they hadn’t been able to track Rebecca down, she had found her sister. For the first time in a long time, Clara thought their family might be more than just picture perfect again.

After the Fact

What am I going to do, she wondered for the thousandth time. How am I going to fix this?

I have to call her. 

Don’t I?

“Of course I do,” she chastised. She just wasn’t sure she had the courage. 

She’d never thought of herself as lacking in courage before. She’d faced life, on her own since the age of seventeen, with a full-steam-ahead attitude. She’d moved three thousand miles away from everyone who cared about her, worked her way through college, bulldozed over other, brighter, executives on the way to the top of her chosen field, and crushed hearts like ants under her foot. 

If only I’d stayed away from that last particular heart, she thought as she wiped tears from her cheeks. But how was I supposed to know?

“Just do it,” she ordered. 

Easier said than done, she thought, her hand hovering over the telephone. After a few more minutes spent debating with herself, Elise picked up the phone and dialed the international number she had somehow memorized after only hearing it once. 

“Hello,” she heard whispered into the receiver, and knew the pain in the voice on the other end was all her fault.

“Hello, Claire,” she answered.

“You have some nerve calling me.”

“I need to explain,” Elise replied. “I had no idea. I didn’t know who he wa…”

“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it, Sis,” Claire hissed, talking over Elise. “The why doesn’t really matter after the fact,” she added. “It won’t make it hurt any less that you slept with my husband…”


I'm taking part in the A to Z Blogging Challenge. I'll be posting a story each day of the month, except on Sundays (with the exception of the first Sunday) that goes with each letter of the alphabet. I hope y'all enjoy the stories, and be sure to check out the other blogs listed on the A to Z website.