Works and Days

Thanksgiving

Conclusion

Thom Lewis was surprised that he was still at the head of the table. Patti was at the other end. However they had tried to hide the dissolution of their marriage, the news of Thom sleeping on the couch and being hit in the head with a ladle was now known to all. Sara had suggested that she sit next to Thom, but her daughter had thrown her such a look that Sara only smiled and said, “Nevermind.”

Thom cleared his throat, folded his hands and said, “I think we should all say something we’re grateful for. You know, go around the table and each say a blessing.”

“Like on Oprah?” Meg said joyously.

Thom frowned at her.

“I think they were talking about that on Oprah,” Meg went on. “Or maybe it was ‘Little House on the Prairie.’ Or something like that.”

“Or something like that,” Kristin repeated.

“Well, I guess I’ll start,” Thom said, putting on a happy face. “I’m grateful to have my whole family around me on this day.”

“Are you really?” Russell whispered.

“Yes, I am,” Thom said to his son with a little irritation. “And now why don’t you tell us what you’re grateful for?”

“I can’t,” said Russell, who was in the middle of the table. “It would mess up the rotation.”

“Well, then I guess it’s my turn,” said Kathleen. She said more or less the same thing as Thom. Among the most memorable thanksgivings was Meg’s:

“I’m thankful for such a big strong man with such a big strong—ouch, who did that?”

As well as Jackie’s: “I’m grateful that I’m not a bitter, controlling pre-menopausal bitch who has her husband tied to a string.”

And Denise’s: “As soon as God gives me something to be thankful for. I’ll thank him.”

After which Thom could only raise eyebrows, smile, blow out his cheeks and say, delightedly, “Amen,” then cross himself.

Watching his father, Russell had a sort of admiration for the man who tried so hard, clinging to—despite all contrary evidence—the belief that a smile that ignored all indiscretion  could save the day.

“Oh, Reese, you don’t need that,” Kristen told her husband as he reached for the mashed potatoes. “Have the broccoli instead. Less starches for you.”

“Jackie, you know you don’t need that broccoli,” Chip told her as she reached for it. She gave him a sharp look, and Chip confided in Finn. “It makes her gassy.”

Jackie turned immediately red and exchanged a glance with John as Finn nodded and said, “Yeah, I remember when we were kids, and you’d get a little bit of roughage in her. You know what else makes her gassy?”

“Finn,” Kristin’s voice was sharp.

“Yeah, Sis.”

“Firstly, never call me that. Secondly, shut up and pass the turkey.”

“Next year,” Kathleen was saying,. “We will deep fry the turkey.”

Kathleen and Sara had been having a debate about baking or deep frying the turkey that had lasted a long time, Sara’s chief argument being that deep frying sounded greasy and disgusting, until Patti had finally pointed out that they didn’t have a deep fryer or the forty gallons of vegetable oil it took to undergo such an enterprise, and finally Thom had stepped in and decided to barbecue the turkey for a bit of a change.

“Reese, don’t eat so fast.” said Kristin.          

“Man,” Finn said, which actually sounded like. “Meeeeeeeeennn, why you let her boss your around like that? Don’t you know a lady needs to be kept in line?”

“Really?” Jackie set the full force of her gaze on her brother, who gulped, and then at the encouraging chuckle of his much too old girlfriend said, “Really. Man, you need to stand up,” to the small blond man with the patient face and the military haircut. “You can’t be letting her tell you everything, running your life willy nilly.”

At this Reese stood up, and for a moment Thom thought he would clock Finn, and in that moment, he wished he would. But he only folded his napkin, pushed in his chair and marched upstairs.

Kristin looked after him and then turned savagely on her younger brother.

“Fenian, I blew your nose, bathed you, wiped your ass, fed you and left home when you were four. I didn’t like you then, and I don’t like you now.”

“Ooooh, you think you’re so big!” Finn stuck his tongue out at her. Chip let out a laugh, which made Jackie grab him by the arm and drag him into the kitchen.

“Whaddid I do?” Chip whined as Kathleen said, “Finn, that’s enough. Lay off the drugs.”      

“You’re so old is what you are, Kristin,” Finn went on.

“Patricia,” Denise’s voice rang out from where she sat beside her sister, though once she’d caught everyone’s attention she seemed, in fact, to be very quiet. “Could I make an observation?”

“Go right on ahead.”

“I know what I said about her,” rising, Denise pointed to Kristin as she was turning to go upstairs after her husband, “but,” pointing to Finn and then Meg, “He’s a brain dead smoked out moron with the IQ of a cup of instant coffee, and she’s an old slut with a makeup kit I haven’t seen sense Grease.”

Denise sat back down.

“That is all,” she said. “If I have anything else to say, I’ll let you know.”

“We’ll be waiting,” Thom said, shaking his head.

 

“Reese,” Kristin said. “You come back down here this instant! We are having a family affair, and you’re brooding up here. I swear—”

Kristin shut up. Reese had been digging around in the suitcase and now he stopped and his blues eyes shot her a look she forgot they had.

“You swear what?” he said, his voice flat, his brows furrowed over burning blue eyes.

Reese left the suitcase, closed the door firmly and shut the lock.

“We’re going to talk now,” he said. “And you’re not going to swear a thing.”

“Whaddid I do now?” Chip groaned.

“Get out,” Jackie told him in the kitchen.

“What?”

“I said get out. Chadwick, I can’t explain what you did this time, but I can tell you you’ve been doing it all the time, and now it’s time for you to go.”

“You wanna fuck that John guy, don’t you? Don’t try that stare on me again.”

“Chadwick—”

“And quit calling me that.”

“It’s your name.”

“Alright then, Jaclyn!” Somehow the name didn’t sound as bad as he’d planned for it to.

“Firstly,” said Jackie. “I’m not going to do anything to anyone. Especially to you. Secondly—”

“You sound like your bitch of a sister. Firstly, secondly, thirdly—”

“Secondly, I’m not going to argue about this. I want you to leave.”

“Jackie.”

“Now.”

“Jack—”

“Now,” she said, this time a little more gently, which made Chip know she was serious, because Jackie was always loud and bombastic. That hardly meant anything.

He left. Jackie sighed, feeling a loss and not exactly sure of what she was losing.

“Goodbye, Chadwick.”

As Jackie pushed open the kitchen door it hit something and she heard a shout and stared at John, rubbing the side of his head.

“Sorry, Jackie,” John said, and smiled at her.

 “Oh, my God,” said Kristin, sitting up in bed an hour later. She reached for her cigarettes, but Reese took the pack first as he sat up beside her, pulling up the covers around his waist.

 “I haven’t seen you like that in... years.”

Reese lit the cigarette, inhaled, gradually exhaled.

“Do it again,” Kristin urged.

“What?”

“Take a drag. I forgot you did it so well, you should never have quit smoking.”

Reese obeyed her.

“Are you turned on by me, now?” he asked her.

“I think,” Kristin said, “I was turned on the moment you closed the door and got that look in your eye. I forgot what that used to do to me.”

“Does that mean you want me to be aggressive more often?”

“One step at a time,” Kristin said. “Am I really that much of a bitch?”

“Kristin,” Reese began in a soothing tone, crushing out the cigarette. He was looking for a good way to say it. Finally he said, “Yes.”

Kristin sighed. “I don’t remember it always being this way.”

“It wasn’t,” Reese lay down in the bed again. He lay on his side and began to stroke Kristin’s arm, catch a tendril of her honey-brown hair.

“I think it’s my fault, largely,” he said reflexively. “Kristin, you’ve always been... take charge. That’s what I loved about you. We used to have... Christ, we used to have the biggest grudge matches, but I got tired of fighting you. I got tired of trying to match you so...”

“You let me be a bitch.”

He reached up and touched her chin, tilting his face toward her. “I let myself be a coward.”

They were silent a while, and then Kristin spoke.

“Do you remember,” Kristin said laughing a little, “when we were younger, and you would come into the bedroom in your Marine uniform and—”

“It would make you red!”

“It did,” she laughed. “And I would undress you one article at a time. Until all you had on was the hat.”

“And we would see how long the hat could stay on...”

A lurid smile ran across Resse’s face.

“Not very long as I remember,” Kristin whispered, the same smile crossing her face as well.

 

Kristin came downstairs as the family slept in front of the roaring television, pretending to watch the game and Patti was loading the dishwasher. Sara and Kathleen had come in to help, but Patti had thrown them out wanting this little bit of time to herself.

“I’ve been...” Kristin said, “detained.”

“I know exactly what you’ve been,” Patti smiled into the dishwasher she kept loading. “Your spare room’s right above the kitchen.”

Kristin blushed.

“Look at you,” Patti said, surprised. “You look. My God you look more than a decade younger. Reese must be amazing.”

Kristin said nothing, but sauntered over to the kitchen door. She pushed it open and looked out across the dining room to the living room where Reese was sitting.

 “There’s just something about a short man....”

Patti put the dish towel over her shoulder, turned on the washer and joined Kristin in her reverie. Thom was smoking again, and Patti didn’t give a damn what the Surgeon General said, it was downright sexy.

“It’s like...” Kristin tried to describe it, “all that manhood harnessed into this one compact thing. And he looks like he’s half your height but he can pick you up, and at the same time so cute and so... ohhh...”

Patti was watching Thom inhale, his thumb and index finger holding the cigarette, its tip turning red and orange, then dull grey. His mouth opened to exhale the smoke going around his brown eyes, his brows, his thick hair. He looked a little tired. With an invisible finger she traced the lines of his face.

“Oh my God!” Krisitn interrupted Patti’s tracing.

“What?” Patti came back to reality.

“You’;re checking my brother out,” she hissed as the kitchen door swung shut.

“I am not,” Patti tried to laugh and felt herself turning red.

“Liar!”

“I was just,” she said to Kristin’s laughter. “I was just going down Memory Lane. You were talking about short, passionate men and the only man I’ve ever had is short, so it follows... I was just thinking about years ago when Thom was working at Denny’s and he got off late and I had to come pick him up. He was closing. No one was there and he was all in white, white pants, white apron, white cap. He closed the blinds and threw me on the table and oh, my God! It used to be like that all the time.”

“Maybe there’s still a chance,” said Kristin.

“No, Thom’s thirty-eight years old. His table throwing days are over.—”

“No, Patricia—” Kristin said, her eyebrows lowering.

“I mean a chance for your marriage. The problem with you all—”

“Yes,” Patti said warily.

“Is probably that you never hit him in the back of the head with a ladle until today. I think the two of you give up too easily.”

“I think….” Patti began, covering up her smile.

“That I’m always right?” Kristin smiled.

“God, no. But you’re right this time. Actually, you’re right a lot of the time.”

Kristin kissed her sister-in-law on the cheek.

“Patricia, that’s all anyone can hope for.”

End of part one 

Of

Works and days