A Story for Thanksgiving

If you think your family is bad...

I recently had a friend confess to me that she secretly loves Thanksgiving movies about dysfunctional families. I had no idea that any such thing existed, but she proceeded to list at least a dozen (sorry, I can’t re-create the list here because I’d never heard of most of the movies, and I think I’d seen exactly two on the list).

That made me think: I’ve never written a Thanksgiving story. Of course I’ve written dozens of Halloween tales, a fistful of Christmas horrors, at least one New Years story, but I don’t think I’ve done Thanksgiving.

So I decided to remedy that. Yesterday I sat down to write something, and today I finished it.

I offer it up here because: 1) I’m immensely grateful to have you all as friends, whether virtual or fleshly; 2) so you’ll have something to do in case you’re not interested in football or Thanksgiving movies; and 3) to reassure you that, as bad as your family might be, it could always be worse…MUCH worse.

With that, I’ll wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving and a survivable Black Friday.

Lisa

“Pilgrims’ Pride”

<TRIGGER WARNING: This story contains mentions of child abuse>

Sam swallowed back his unease as he stepped up to the door of the family home, raising his hand to knock. The light that spilled through the front windows was warm, but he knew that the holiday meal was likely to be icy.

He didn’t want to be here. It’d been ten years since he’d left, and he hadn’t come back once. Ten years of healing, of slowly learning to live. He’d made a career, fallen in love, gotten married; the ceremony had been at the county courthouse, with only two friends as witnesses. He was thankful Elissa had agreed to that; it made it so much easier, since he could just tell his family that no one had been invited.

The drive here, alone, had been one of building tension. He’d forgotten how isolated the house was, out in that part of the country where homes were all peeling paint and chipped wood, surrounded by huge overgrown lots and potholed roads.

The isolation had certainly served his father well.

Shivering, Sam realized it was time to do this, to get it over with. He was an adult now, a grown man. He could handle this.

He took a deep breath and knocked.

The door opened almost instantly and he wondered if his mother had been standing there on the other side, aware he’d arrived, waiting for the knock.

It took him a second to realize that the wizened, gray-haired woman before him was his mother. She’d aged thirty years in the decade since he’d last seen her. She was rail-thin, the tendons on her bony arms outlined. She looked up, drinking him in; when she finally smiled, he saw she was missing several teeth.

“Come here,” she said, holding out her arms, eyes tearing. Awkwardly, Sam stepped forward, put his arms around her. She felt skeletal, frail. “Hi, Mom,” he said.

She released him and looked outside. “Where’s Elissa?”

“She didn’t come.”

The disappointment on his mother’s face nearly made him regret begging Elissa to go to her family tonight. He’d spent the last five Thanksgivings with the Catalinos so he knew Elissa was surrounded by good food and laughter and love. He remembered his Thanksgivings, which had always begun with Dad talking about how they were descended directly from the pilgrims; those meals usually ended with Sam nursing at least one new bruise.

“Oh,” Mom said, her posture drooping. “Sam, we still haven’t even met her.”

“I know, but…” Sam was about to add, You know why, but held his tongue. He’d try to be civil just long enough to make this a real visit, then he’d climb back into his car and escape, just as he had at nineteen.

Mother stepped back, motioning Sam in. “Well, the important thing is that you’re here.”

Sam entered, swallowing back anxiety. He wished now that he’d taken up Elissa when she’d offered him a Xanax. But the house smelled good, like roasting meat, and the temperature was pleasant.

“Take off your jacket,” his mother suggested, holding out a hand. He gave in, shrugging out of the puffy coat, which Mother placed on a coat rack. She hesitated then, inspecting him. “You look good. Better even than in your pictures.”

He thought about the last time he’d sent anything home; it was probably three years ago, a photo of him with Elissa, the two cheek to cheek and grinning. He had a flash of guilt at realizing he’d sent nothing – no gifts, no cards, not even emails – since.

As Mother looked at him, Sam gazed around the house. It hadn’t changed except that everything looked a little shabbier, a little more stained. There was his father’s recliner, the leather now cracking. There was the couch that his father had bent him over for beatings. There was the coffee table that Dad had once broken in a rage and then ordered fourteen-year-old Sam to fix. He’d done his best, but he wasn’t much of a carpenter and it still leaned a little.

“Where is Dad?” he asked, voice quivering.

“He’s…upstairs. He wasn’t feeling well.”

Sam involuntarily glanced up the stairs at the closed door that he knew led to his parents’ bedroom. He halfway expected to hear something – shouting, screaming – but it was quiet.

“Oh,” he said. “What about Liz?”

“She was here earlier, but she’s gone now,” Mother replied.

That was strange; Sam had texted his sister just this morning. They’d discussed Mom’s Thanksgiving invitation at length; it had surprised both of them because it had never happened before. Mother had urged them to visit at Christmas for a few years, but had finally given up on even that. But then the Thanksgiving invitation had come at the beginning of November, and it felt somehow urgent. On the phone, Mom’s voice had sounded strained when she’d said, “Please, Sam. We need to talk. Please come.”

He and Liz had wondered what it meant; was someone dying? They’d decided together to accept, to support each other through whatever it was, but now Liz had apparently reneged on the deal and Sam was more than a little angry at her.

“So it’s just the two of us?”

As Mother turned to head for the kitchen, she muttered, “Well, it would’ve been three if you’d brought Elissa.”

Sam felt the small stab, was about to respond when a thud came from overhead.

From the bedroom.

He froze, listening. There was a slight scraping sound from overhead, as if something rough had been dragged over the floor up there. When the sound didn’t return after a few seconds, Sam pulled his phone from his pants pocket and texted his sister: I’m with Mom. Where are you?

Liz usually got back to him in a few seconds; he waited, but no reply appeared. He hurriedly put the phone down as Mother returned from the kitchen bearing bowls of gravy and mashed potatoes, and he asked, “So what’s wrong with Dad?”

Mother’s mouth tightened as she set the bowls down on the dining table, which Sam saw had been set for four. “He’s…he’s been sick for a while.”

Ahh, maybe Liz and I nailed it.

“How sick?”

“Can you help me carry the turkey? We can talk once we’re seated. ”

He followed her into the kitchen, saw the turkey sitting on a decorative plate he remembered from childhood, which – thanks to Dad – wasn’t a happy nostalgia. He picked up the plate, Mother retrieved green beans from the microwave, and together they went back to the dining table. Sam took the same chair he’d always sat in as Mother carved the turkey. “Do you still like the drumstick?”

“Sure, Mom.”

She cut off the leg, put it on his plate, added the side dishes, served herself, and sat. Sam picked up his knife and fork, determined to eat for only a few minutes before heading off, but he stopped when he saw his mother gazing at him, a sad smile on her face. “What?” he asked.

“It’s just good to see you. It’s been too long.”

Cutting into the turkey, Sam said, “You know why,” and gestured upstairs.

Another thud came.

Sam’s appetite fled. He set down his utensils, nodded upward and said, “Okay, we’re here. Now, tell me: what’s going on with him?”

Mother forked a bite of turkey but didn’t raise it to her mouth. “He was a good man once. I know that’s hard to believe now, but when we first met, he was full of laughter and kindness. We went out all the time, to concerts and movies. We had friends, we held parties, he did well at work…we had a good life.”

Irritated, Sam dropped his fork so it clattered loudly against his cheap melamine plate. “And then I came along, is that it?”

“Not exactly –”

This time it was a full-blown CRASH from overhead, followed by what sounded like a muffled howl. Sam felt his small hairs rise at the sound. Mother flinched but went on, as if used to the noise. “This…thing…has been in his family for hundreds of years.”

Sam barked a small, bitter laugh. “You mean the family that’s descended straight from the pilgrims?”

Mother answered, her tone serious, “Yes.”

Sam’s eyes widened in disbelief. Was his mother suffering from some form of early onset Alzheimer’s? “Mom, you can’t –”

His question was interrupted when something caught his eye, distracting him. He looked up at the ceiling and noticed a splotch there, red, spreading.

Mother followed his gaze, saw the stain, ignored it. “Because you couldn’t know your father before you were born, you didn’t see the first change. You only knew him after.”

“’The first change’?”

Eyeing the overhead blotch, now the size of one of the dinner plates, Mother mumbled, “That’s going to be hard to get out.”

“Mom,” Sam nearly shouted, “what are you talking about? What does ‘the first change’ mean?”

“I told you: it’s passed down through his family. The men change when they have the first child, but the second change comes when the child has a child.”

Feeling abruptly nauseous, Sam pushed his plate away. “You mean the first grandchild.”

“Yes. Sam, Liz told us Elissa is pregnant.”

Liz… Tilting his head back to gulp air, Sam saw the now-huge crimson patch on the ceiling and watched as it begin to drip onto the table near him, almost hitting the turkey. “Did Liz…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

Mother, though, understood. “She got here before you did and decided to visit him for herself.”

“You lied – you said she was gone.”

“I didn’t lie.”

Sam doubled over and vomited, despite the fact that he’d barely eaten. It wasn’t just from realization, though; there was something else, something physical happening deep within him.

Something changing.

“Oh no,” he muttered, as he knelt on the floor. “No, no, no – I won’t be like him.”

Mother was there, then, a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You won’t have any choice.”

Sam was already screaming when the bedroom door overhead smashed open.