Turkey Day

Thanksgiving has always been a hectic time in my family and my mother was especially worried considering this would be her first time hosting the event. I could tell the day before that she was stressed and my father suggested I keep out of her way. She had been a whirlwind of cleaning, cooking, and decorating long before I even got out of bed. My younger sister was tasked with keeping our baby brother pacified while my mother worked. I could tell by the bags under her eyes that my five month old sibling had kept her awake much of the night. So, when the big day came I kept to the back yard and waiting for my cousins to arrive.

Our house was filled with my family. My grandparents arrived early and my grandmother insisted on helping but my mother would not allow it, despite how tired she had become. The kids piled outside, except my youngest brother, of course. We played tag and hide-and-go seek until someone broke out the football. A lot of the girls were not as interested in the sport and returned to my sister’s room to play with her dolls. My father and my uncles lounged in the living room, the big game playing on the television. My aunts gossiped around the dining room table, wine glasses in hand. All while my mother toiled in the kitchen preparing our dinner.

My mother rushed to set the table and place the side portions equal distances apart. If you watched how meticulous she was that day you would think she was auditioning for the holiday issue of Better Homes and Gardens. Everyone was beckoned to the dining room and within moments it became alive with conversation. Uncle Bill started with the same story he always told about how he and my dad once got lost in Old Mill Forrest. We had heard the story hundreds of times but it was tradition to laugh at every line of it. My mother entered just long enough to thank everyone for coming and to ask my sister to go get the baby from his crib. My sister disappeared down the hall as my mother disappeared back into the kitchen.

My sister returned a few moments later, tugging at my father’s shirt sleeve. He brushed her away at first but when she did not relent he turned to see what she wanted. She informed him that the baby was not in his crib and as the words fell from her mouth a scream of a thousand banshees echoed from the kitchen right before a tremendous thud. My family fought one another through the doorway where they found my mother unconscious on the floor and the door to the oven hanging wide open. My father approached the charred remains of something resembling a thanksgiving turkey. He poked it slightly before he noticed the open refrigerator from the corner of his eye. The uncooked bird still sat inside the dim light of our fridge and what lay in our oven was my little baby brother.