Chapter 6 - Thanksgiving Without the Fixer
Thanksgiving in the Bennett home had always been an Olympic sport, and I had been the sole athlete.
Every year, Susan would announce that she was hosting twenty relatives. Then, by 9:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning, she would fake a migraine or stage a meltdown because the turkey was thawing too slowly. I would arrive early, take over the kitchen, roast the bird, whip the potatoes, bake the pies, carve the meat, and wash the dishes until my knuckles bled. Meanwhile, Laya sat in the den drinking spiked cider, and Susan wandered around accepting compliments on "her lovely home."
This year, Thanksgiving arrived on November 28th.
I spent the morning sleeping until 10:00 a.m. Then, I put on a cozy oversized sweater, brewed a pot of French press coffee, and walked two blocks down to Julian’s bakery.
Julian had invited me to help him prep Thanksgiving pickup orders for three hours in exchange for homemade apple galette and company. Working beside him in the warm, flour-dusted kitchen—listening to jazz, laughing as he taught me how to crimp pie dough—felt more like family than anything I had experienced in twenty years.
Meanwhile, three miles away, the Bennett household was experiencing systemic structural failure.
I didn't hear about it until 4:00 p.m., when Aunt Clara called me.
I stepped into Julian’s back alley to answer. "Happy Thanksgiving, Aunt Clara."
"Ava, darling," Clara’s dry, amused drawl came through the speaker. "I just wanted to thank you for not showing up today. It is the greatest theatrical performance I have witnessed since *Les Misérables* on Broadway."
I chuckled. "What happened?"
"Well," Clara began, savvily enjoying every syllable, "your mother attempted to make a twenty-pound turkey without removing the plastic bag of giblets from the cavity. The entire house smelled like burning synthetic petroleum by one o’clock."
"Oh no."
"Oh, yes. Then, Richard tried to carve it with a dull bread knife because nobody knew where you stored the electric carving blades. The turkey shattered into dry, gray chunks. When your mother started crying and told Laya to whip the potatoes, Laya had a hysterical fit because she didn't know you had to boil them *before* mashing them. She broke your mother's KitchenAid mixer trying to pulverize raw Russet potatoes."
I let out an involuntary bark of laughter, covering my mouth. "Raw potatoes in the mixer?"
"Smoking motor and all," Clara said gleefully. "Richard finally snapped. He stood up at the dining room table, threw his napkin onto his plate, and shouted at Susan: *'For twenty years Ava did all of this, and neither of you ever said thank you once!'* Then he grabbed his coat and went to the Waffle House on Route 23."
I fell quiet. The laughter faded, replaced by a strange, hollow pang.
"Did he really say that?"
"Word for word," Clara affirmed, her voice turning gentle. "The veil is completely torn, Ava. Susan tried to blame you for not being here, and Uncle Robert—bless him—looked her in the eye and said, *'Susan, Ava doesn't live here. You are sixty-one years old. Learn how to cook a potato.'* Half the family left early."
"I almost feel bad," I murmured.
"Don't you dare," Clara scolded firmly. "You absorbed their misery for a decade so they could pretend to be functional. They are finally having to look in the mirror, Ava. It’s the kindest thing you ever did for them."
After hanging up, I stood in the alley for a long moment, watching my breath fog in the November chill.
When I walked back into the bakery, Julian looked up from wiping down the counter. He saw the solemn look on my face, set his towel aside, and handed me a warm mug of spiced cider.
"Family stuff?" he asked gently.
"Family stuff," I admitted. "Or rather... the end of it."
He didn't pry. He just leaned against the counter beside me, clinked his mug against mine, and said, "Here’s to the families we choose."
May you like
"To the families we choose," I agreed. And the warmth of the cider reached all the way to my bones.
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