13. Turkey Day: Round 2

“I swear he snorted at us….” Becky said. I had followed her to the kitchen so she could tattle.

“Oh, pooh,” Mother said with a wave of her small pink hands. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it…”

Thad pushed by with a “pardon em moi” to shuffle a casserole into the oven.

“Now, Mother, I am not an idiot.” Becky continued, “I know a piggy snort when I hear one. He made one to me earlier and now he just did the same thing to both Mike and me.”

“He was probably just clearing his throat,” Mom said, putting green and black olives into a white hobnail dish that used to belong to her mother. “He’s been sick on and off for a while. He’s even lost more weight, poor thing.” 

“Really? Really Mother? He’s a ‘poor thing’? That’s ironic. I am just too old for him to continue to torture me about my weight.” Becky said aggressively, then to me, “Tell her.” She jabbed me in the ribs with a sharp finger.

Everyone in the kitchen turned to frown at me.

“Well, Michael?” Thad said with a small smile at the corners of his mouth, “Did he?”

Becky frowned at me so intently her eyes almost disappeared completely into her face.

Against my better judgment, as I knew it would be better to just let things go, I said, “Yes. It sounded like a snort.”

“A piggy noise?” Becky said, coming up to me, nodding her head in psychotic frantic agreement.  

“Yes, a piggy noise.” I said with a deflated sigh, now giving Becky the ammunition to sulk for the rest of the day.

“See!” She said, dancing around me, “I told you! I told you!”

Mother pursed her lips at me, “Michael you just encourage her.”

“Well, it is true,” I said. “He should keep his bone thin feelings to himself. We all didn’t have the advantage of being born to a line of emaciated Vikings who only eat krill and herring and snow, or whatever they eat up there.”

“You’re preaching to the choir!” Becky laughed, putting back another deviled egg.

 Mother and Smith had visited Sweden twice in the 90’s, and Mother’s only opinion of it was that it is was cold and the food was all too fishy. We had never been invited, which was fine. Even in all of my worldly academic travels, I had never set foot in the Land of the Midnight Sun, nor ever wanted to for fear it would be full of humorless men like Smith.   

“You two go set the table, while Thad and I finish up here.” Mother said, with a wave of her small hands.

“Fine fine” Becky said with a huff. “But I told you…”

Becky hummed a Christmas song as she set out the good china and I placed the water and wine glasses. We joked and pretended to lick all of Smith’s silverware. It was an odd dynamic, our family, as Becky and I were middle-aged yet we were still the children of the family, as neither of us had introduced children into the mix. Becky had wanted children, but Ray did not. A few months after they were married she had gotten pregnant “on accident,” but lost it and was crushed. We never brought that up. I had no desire for children; rearing Thad was enough of a challenge for me, plus he would probably just get jealous and lock the child in an oven or perpetrate some other fairy tale horror to them, so it was for the best that we were childless. But because of this, Becky and I still got to be the big kids we never outgrew, and it was just rather accepted.

   Becky went back to the kitchen and Thad came out a minute later, “That woman is working my last nerve.”

“Who?”

“Your mother!” he snapped. “She keeps laying things down and then accusing me of moving them. She is getting just senile.” I could tell by his body language that he needed a cigarette.

“Did you bring them?” I asked.

“What?” he said coyly, eyes darting.

“Your cigarettes?”

“Yeah,” He shrugged. “They’re in my coat.”

“Just go out behind the garage. I won’t say anything:” When we had both quit smoking last year, Mother had been so proud of us that she had made us a cake. I had not told her that he had recently started back up as it would embarrassed him. He appreciated that.

“God, I love you!” he said looking me in the eyes and squeezing my hand. “I’ll be right back. Tell Betty Off Her Crocker in there that I’m in the bathroom if she asks.”

“Will do.”

He looked around to make sure no one was around and then leaned over and kissed me on the lips and said, “I’ll be right back.”

I smiled as he ran out of the room, and continued to set out the glasses, humming the Christmas song Becky had gotten stuck in my head.

A few minutes later Smith walked in. “Why is Thaddeus outside the garage?”

“What?” I feigned. “Is he?”

“Yes, I saw him from my upstairs Den window. He appeared to be smoking. I thought you two stopped that awful habit.”

With teeth clenched, I leaned into Smith, “Yes, but Thad started back up. It’s just his nerves…don’t say anything to Mom, okay?”

“His nerves?” Smith laughed. He had a high-pitched Nordic laugh that made little noise, but came with exaggerated actions like hand waving and belly touching. I hated it.  

“Yes, he’s a very nervous person. It calms him.” I said in a more aggressive tone, hoping he would back down. 

“Nervous about what?” Smith laughed again, “He doesn’t work. Has he ever worked? He just sits around your house and watches television. What does he have to be nervous about?”   

I could not think of anything to say, and I so wanted to backhand him right then and there, as he was right, and I felt the same way. But I was not allowed to feel that way, as I had to be on Thad’s side. And even though Thad did not have a lot to be nervous about in my book, he was a nervous sort nonetheless and I had to respect that. But to have to defend that to someone like Smith was an impossibility. So I just looked away, ashamed of Thad, which made me ashamed of me. 

“But you are not smoking again are you?” Smith continued.

“No.”

“Good,” he said, rapping his knuckles against the table. “At least hopefully we can keep the cancer out of the family. I’ll be upstairs. Call me when the meal is ready.”  He smiled a tight smile and left the room.

The light in the room moved slowly overhead as everything seemed to stop in time. Smith’s words jumbled in my head, toppling one over another as I tried to make sense out of his sounds. He had said ‘…cancer out of the family.’ He was saying that he was glad I was not smoking so I would not get cancer…but that Thad might, as he smoked…but that would be okay, as Thad was not part of the family. Not part of the family. Did he really just say that?

As the door shut behind Smith I realized his implication. Smith was saying if Thad died, it would be okay because he was not really a member of the family. But Smith did not say it outright, or did he? Did I just imagine it? I ran his words though my head again in the other direction, and wondered if it was his weird accent or if I had heard him right.
I decided he had said it was fine for Thad to die from cancer because he was not a member of the family. Yes. He had said it. Smith had. Smith had actually said that to me, to my face, about my boyfriend, who had been part of my life for over twenty years now, and a part of this family for more than two years. Smith had said it.    

Time began again as the blood flooded my face and I felt simultaneously weak with pain and empowered with rage. The thick beating of my heart jarred me back into reality. How dare he? How dare he? How could Smith be so pointedly hateful? I wanted to kill him with my hands, and I could do it, here, on the table, right on the Thanksgiving table.

But no, I could not. I could not confront him, not here, and not now. And that’s why he said it. Smith knew I could not fight back. It was Thanksgiving. I had to be good or I would be labeled "the one who ruined Thanksgiving.” So I had to stay mum. And I could not tell Thad, as he would verbally thrash Smith right then and there, and that would make it all the worse, as then Thad would be "the one who ruined Thanksgiving.” And Smith knew that too, and that’s why he said what he did. Smith humiliated me and left me in a position where I was helpless. I was helpless.     

  Someone came into the room behind me. They were humming, moving things around on the table. They said something to me that I did not hear. Then they touched my arm.

“What?” I jumped from my trance.  

“What’s going on?” Becky said, “You look so upset.”

Against my better judgment I told her what had just happened.

“You are shitting me!” she gasped. ‘That’s so horrible!” She grabbed me to give me a tight body hug. “I’m so sorry. He’s such a monster!”

I hugged back. “Thank you, honey. So, it’s not my imagination? I didn’t misinterpret? You think that’s really what he meant? That he doesn’t consider Thad a part of the family? And doesn’t care if he dies of cancer?”

“Yes!” She gasped, looking up at me, “Oh my God, what a coldhearted bastard. He used to treat Ray that way sometimes, but never to his face. It’s just Smith’s oh so charming way. But, Jesus!”

I heard Thad laugh from the kitchen.

Pulling away I said, “But, oh my God, don’t say anything to Thad. He would eviscerate Smith.” 

“Oh, I would pay good money to see that!” she laughed.

“You can’t say anything, okay?” I snapped. “That would be disastrous. We just need to get this meal over with, and get the Hell out of here. Watching Smith and Thad go at each other like Titians would not help a thing.”

“But it would be so neato….” She trailed off.

“I just wish I had defended Thad.” I took her hand. “I mean Smith just said it, and I didn’t understand at first, I mean I just didn’t get what he said, and then he walked out. I didn’t get a chance to defend Thad…I didn’t even get the chance…” And then I teared-up.

“Oh, don’t cry, you’ll get all puffy…” Becky reached up to wipe my eyes. “It’s okay. Just ignore him. Let it go…”

“You’re right! You’re right!” I said, pulling away to pace back and forth, waving my hands frantically. “I just need to let it go. Let it go…let it go…”

“Let what go?” Thad said walking into the room carrying a plate of cornbread, a frowningly inquisitive look on his face.  

Mother followed to announce happily, “Well, you kids get ready, it looks like we’re about to eat.”