The Turkey I Carried Out to My Car
In August, at the State Fair, Noah showed a Mini Rex rabbit and took a red ribbon, and my mother bought him a lemon shake-up to celebrate and then took it out of his hand half finished and said he did not need the rest. I drove out to the farm the next evening by myself. I sat at her kitchen table and I said, as plainly as I know how to say anything, “Mom, you do not get to talk to Noah about his size. Not ever. Not one word. You did it to me from the time I was eleven and I am thirty-six years old and I still cannot eat in front of people without counting. You are not doing it to him.”
She said I was being dramatic. Then she said all right.
In October she told him at her own back door that his Halloween costume would fit better if he laid off the candy this year. He was going as a firefighter. I had the same conversation with her again, standing in her yard, and that time she said, “Fine, Jessica. I heard you. I promise.”
So when I say I did not answer her in that kitchen, it is not because I had nothing to say. I had already said it. Twice. Out loud, to her face, and she had given me her word.
There was not a sentence left that she had not already heard. And there was nobody to call. The one person I wanted was standing in front of a furnace with his phone in a locker.
All that was left was something to do.
I had carved one whole side of that turkey onto my mother’s ironstone platter before we sat down. The other side of the breast and both the dark quarters were still in the roaster, on the back of the stove with a dish towel over them, keeping warm for seconds. More than half the bird.
I took the towel off. I set the lid on.
It made a little ringing sound, enamel on enamel. It was the only sound in the house.
“What do you think you’re doing?” my mother said.
I put on the oven mitts. They were mine too. They had chickens on them.
“Jessica.”
I picked up the roaster. It was heavier than I expected with my arms shaking, and I had to take a second to get it settled against my apron. Then I turned around and walked it to the head of that long table and stood where every one of them could see me.
I did not raise my voice. I have my mother’s voice, I am told, and I used it the way she does.
“I bought this dinner,” I said. “I’ve been cooking it in this kitchen since five o’clock this morning, and Noah has been right beside me since seven. He peeled and mashed every potato on this table. Everything I made is staying right where it is. The dressing, the sweet potatoes, the beans, the gravy, two of the three pies, and all the turkey on that platter. Nobody in this house is going to go hungry on my account.”
My brother Jeff had his fork halfway up. He set it down.
“But I’m going to go eat with my son,” I said. “I’m going to take this to my house, and I’m going to fix him a plate, and then I’m going to fix him another one if he wants it. Anybody who would like to eat with Noah is welcome. You all know where we live. It’s small and we’ll be on card tables, but there’s room.”