The Holiday My Family Left Me Off

“I thought Mom told you,” she said finally.

“Told me what.”

More silence. A door closing somewhere on her end.

“We did Thanksgiving early this year,” she said. “Last weekend. Mom wanted to beat the grocery crowds. You know how she gets.”

“Last weekend,” I repeated, like saying it slower might change the answer.

“I really did think somebody told you,” Katharyn said again, faster this time, the way people talk when they are trying to outrun a silence. “It got busy. Mom had the turkey ordered early and everybody’s schedules lined up for that Saturday, and I guess it just, it just happened before anybody thought to check with you.”

I stood there holding a dish towel, staring at a casserole dish full of a recipe six generations deep, and I understood in one long, cold second that my entire family had gathered, eaten, laughed, and gone home, and not one of them had thought, Jettie might want to know about this.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me,” I said.

Katharyn exhaled, and in the background a man’s voice, Kermit’s voice, said, “Hey, just relax, it’s fine,” the way a man says it when he means the opposite for someone else and the truth for himself.

“I really thought Mom called you,” Katharyn said. “This is uncomfortable.”

Uncomfortable. Like I was a scheduling conflict. Like thirty five years of being her sister came down to an awkward five minutes on a Thursday morning.

“You could still come by,” she offered. “There’s food left.”