"Mother, I am saying that I am glad you trusted me with your secret recipe," Jason says.
Lillian looks around. "Where is your mother? I thought for sure she would be here-I was looking forward to our rapprochement."
"She and Bob are going out with friends," I say.
"That seems strange, doesn"t it? You making a holiday dinner without your mother?"
I make no mention of my anxiety about what would happen, or how I would introduce Madeline and Cy to my mother and Bob. Who would they be to each other? Would there be a fight for turf?
"Well, Bob"s children only invited him but not Mother to their Thanksgiving, and their feelings were hurt," I explain. "Of course, I invited them both to join us, but as my mother put it, "I don"t want to burden Bob with the complexity of family, he"s suffered enough. We"ll go with friends, there"s an early bird at a local place. The minivan will take us from here; we"ll have a good time.""
Before we sit down to dinner, we take lots of pictures-group shots in the living room. Almost everyone has a camera or a phone, so we take turns, some friends and some family.
"Should this be our Christmas card?" Madeline asks Cy.
"What"s with all the Chinese?" I hear Lillian ask Jason, as we make our way to the table. "I thought he got divorced?" She takes her seat at the table. "Is he running a boarding house?" she mutters. "It"s like a freak show, a random collection of people."
I am at the head of the table, bearing witness. I am thinking of Sakhile and the e-mail he sent this morning: "When the road narrows, the guy to the rear of you has the right of way."
I am thinking of George and his proct.i.tis in prison and wondering what they"re serving for Thanksgiving dinner an hour north of here. I am thinking of Cheryl and her family. I am thinking of Amanda, wondering if she is in this country or out of this world, and of Heather Ryan"s parents having this first holiday without her, and of Walter Penny likely out for a long run before supper.
Stay, I tell myself, as I take a breath. Stay here, in the moment. And I breathe again-deeply. I think of Londisizwe and his tea, and even though it has been months, I burp and the flavor repeats.
I look down the length of the table and see young and old talking, pa.s.sing platters of turkey and stuffing, sweet and savory, embracing the season. Ricardo hands me the cranberry sauce. "Ashley and I made it," he says, proudly. "We squeeeezzzed the lemons."
"No such thing as too much gravy," Cy says as the gravy boat circulates.
I look at Nate and Ashley and remember Thanksgiving last year, when they were curled in their chairs like spineless lumps, their electronics in hand, eyes focused on the small screens; the only things engaged were their thumbs. I remember looking at them with disdain as they sat inert, unaware of their mother enslaved in the kitchen, their father bloviating at the guests. And now Nate turns to the guests and inquires, "Does everyone have everything they need?" And Ashley asks Lillian, "Can I get you anything else?"
In the living room, the television is on-the movie Mighty Joe Young is playing, and I ask Nate to turn it off, and he does. I am surveying the situation, comforted that I can actually feel pleased. In fact, I notice that I feel nothing except benevolence-free-floating good will.
It is Thanksgiving and I do not fear the other shoe falling; actually, I am not even wearing shoes. There is a distinct absence of tension, of worry that something might explode, erupt, or otherwise go wrong. I note the absence of worry and the sense that in the past that absence of anxiety would have caused me to panic, but now it is something I simply notice and then let go-carrying on.
I am looking down the table thinking of everyone I"ve ever known; every h.e.l.lo and goodbye sweeps through me like an autumn breeze. I am porous, nonstick.
"A prayer?" Cy suggests.
Our heads are bowed.
"Itadakimasu," Nate says in j.a.panese. "I humbly receive."
"Our Father, for this day, for this food we thank Thee," Ricardo"s aunt offers.
"My turn," Ashley says, standing up before the aunt is done. "So, like, it"s been a really wild ride," she says. "But there"s a book I read this summer and I wanted to share it with you." Ashley then begins to read from a page she"s printed out: I do not think of all the misery, but of the glory that remains. Go outside into the fields, nature and the sun, go out and seek happiness in yourself and in G.o.d. Think of the beauty that again and again discharges itself within and without you and be happy.
"Very nice," Cy says. "Was that Whitman? Longfellow?"
"Anne Frank," Ashley says.
Cy waits a moment before raising his gla.s.s. "Well, I want to thank you, all of you. It has been a very good year for Madeline and me, moving back into our home. I don"t know why we ever left. La-hoolum!"
Madeline leans over and whispers loudly to Cy, "Thanksgiving is an American holiday, not a Jewish holiday."
Lillian leans over and, while pointing towards Madeline and Cy, asks Jason, "Whose people are those?"
Jason shrugs. "Dunno."
"I didn"t know Claire"s parents were Caucasian," Lillian says.
"Maybe Claire was adopted," Jason suggests.
"And where is Claire anyway?" Lillian asks. "I thought they killed Jane, did they kill Claire too?"
We eat, we gorge, we stuff ourselves, greedily devouring everything. Plates are pa.s.sed for seconds and thirds. Aunt Christina"s ambrosia is oddly addictive; after my third helping, she tells me that the secret ingredient is heavy mayonnaise. I skip a fourth serving and load up on turkey. We eat until we are sated and still we keep going, eating until we are in pain, until we are suffering, because that is the new American tradition.
"I don"t even like sweet potatoes and I had two helpings," Ashley says, pushing herself away from the table.
"The bird was perfect," Madeline says.
We take a break before dessert; the children work as a team and clear the table.
Mrs. Gao and Ching Lan and her mother insist on helping to clean up. Mrs. Gao brought Tupperware containers-"my gift to you," she says. "I love these things; they burp when you close them."
I am so overstuffed that I can literally go no farther than the living-room sofa. I lie there thinking of George eating pressed turkey breast, jellied cranberry slices still bearing the ringlike indentations from the can, lumpy gravy, and glutinous white-bread stuffing, and I wonder: Is there pumpkin pie in prison? If there is, does it have any flavor at all?
The children are outside, playing football on the front lawn with Ricardo"s uncle and Cy; there are joyous shouts as the pigskin pa.s.ses from hand to hand.
There is talk of an early snow, freezing rain.
It is three hundred sixty-five days since the warning, three hundred and sixty-five days since Jane pressed against me in the kitchen: me with my fingers deep in the bird; our wet, greasy kiss.
It has been a year in full, and still the thought of Jane fills me with heat. I feel myself rise to the occasion.
May we be forgiven; it is a prayer, an incantation.
May We Be Forgiven.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
With great thanks for their support, friendship, and editing skills: Marie Sanford, Amy Hempel, Katherine Greenberg, Amy Gross, Elliott Holt, Lisa Randall, Laurie Simmons, and Syd Sidner, who sat next to me for days and weeks, bringing me way too much coffee, and Claudia Slacik, who quite literally gave me a place to write.
Zadie Smith, who asked the question that got the whole thing going; William Boyd, who picked the first chapter for Granta"s 100th issue; Salman Rushdie, who later selected the piece for The Best American Short Stories 2008; and Heidi Pilator at Best American Short Stories.
Agents Andrew Wylie, Sarah Chalfant, Charles Buchan, Jin Auh, and Peter Benedek on the West Coast. And lawyers Marc H. Glick and Stephen F. Breimer.
Paul Slovak, my editor at Viking, who met me for lunch many times along the way, and Sara Holloway at Granta, UK, who has been a wonderful friend and editor for the last ten years.
Francoise Nyssen and Marie-Catherine Vacher in France; Carlo Feltrinelli, Fabio Muzi Falconi, and Maria Baiocchi in Italy; Robert Ammerlaan in the Netherlands; and Helge Malchow and Kerstin Gleba in Germany.
Elaina Richardson, Candace Wait, and the staff of Yaddo, without whom I would never write anything. Special thanks to Catherine Clarke, who retired in 2011 after spending twenty-five years at the front desk saying, "Good afternoon, this is Yaddo," in her wonderfully calm voice to anyone who called.
Andre Balaz, Philip Pavel, and the staff of the Chateau Marmont-my West Coast Yaddo.
My colleagues at the Pen American Center, Poets and Writers, and The Writer"s Room in New York City.
And my brother and parents-what a long strange trip it"s been.
ALSO BY A.M. HOMES.
The Mistress"s Daughter.
This Book Will Save Your Life.
Los Angeles: People, Places, and the Castle on the Hill.
Things You Should Know.
Music for Torching.
The End of Alice.
Appendix A: An Elaboration on the Novel The End of Alice.
In a Country of Mothers.
The Safety of Objects.