Thanksgiving Day
Lisa woke up the next morning to Brian shaking her gently by the shoulder.
"Lisa. Come'on Love, i's time to get up."
"Ohhh…" she groaned, rolling over and pulling the pillow over her head.
"C'mon, don't make me bring Quawky in here."
"Huh?"
"Quawky."
"Who's Quawky?"
"ER-ER-e-EROOOOOO!"
"That is Quawky."
"Ohhh…what time is it?" Lisa said as she sat up, rubbing her eyes.
"Five forty."
"Five for-Brian! Why are we getting up so early?"
"Breakfast, of course. Come, get dressed. Don't where anything that you don't want to get dirty. We have to take care of the animals. You can clean up and maybe get a little more sleep after that."
"What animals?"
Lisa pulled on a pair of jeans and an old T-shirt, and, after looking at the cold, misty morning outside, a pink jumper.
There were, indeed, several animals to care for. The chickens were the first. The Callahans had three separate chicken pens. The egg layers, White Leghorns, Araucanas, Americanas, Rhode Island Reds, and plump, friendly Barred Rock hens, were kept penned only at night, and were allowed to free-range around the ranch during the day. Lisa helped Brian fill the feed bins they provided for them, and freshened the automatic waterers while Brian scattered cracked corn and ground oyster shells for them to scratch at. They collected the eggs from the nesting boxes they had lying around the ranch, and then showed her where the meat chickens were kept in individual cages. Lisa was disgusted by the idea, and even more so by the sight of weighing scales and 'killing cones' that the chickens were placed in to be killed.
"It's much more humane than you'd think, Lis. Once the chickens reach or exceeded the desired weight, they're rendered unconscious with carbon dioxide. So far, I think we're the only place that uses the asphyxiation method instead of zapping them with electricity. Then, they're placed upside down in the cone, and their jugular veins and carotid arteries are severed with a scalpel. Gravity and blood pressure to the rest. It is pretty quick, as the brain ceases to function once deprived of oxygenated blood. Once the brain stops, the heart stops. It takes less than a minute, and the animal is never awake for it. The animal remains is hung outside until the blood has drained, and is then plucked, gutted, and dressed. My family raises these guys more for sale than for themselves, though they do eat them instead of the chicken at the store."
Lisa was looking at the chickens during his entire explanation, and did her best to not hear. She looked at the chickens, their dull, stupid eyes. They lacked the light and fire the laying hens' had. Their mouths were ever open, and they moved slowly and awkwardly.
"Not the brightest bulbs on the tree, aren't they?"
"No. They've been bred for one purpose. I guess, as with people, the more muscular, the dimmer."
"Hmmm…"
"They're actually certified organic. We feed them all-natural feed, free from genetically modified grains and animal proteins, and use no pesticides in or around their pens. No growth hormones, antibiotics, or steroids. These are perfectly green chooks."
They fed the meat chickens, giving them a special blend of feed and cracked corn, carefully measured out in a measuring cup. Lisa secretly gave them less than the usual, hoping that eating a little less would prolong their lives.
After that they let the show chickens out into their covered 'day pen' where they could roam and forage without the threat of predators, and gave them fresh feed and water. Brian saw Quawky, their prized bantam Cochin rooster, sneezing, and added some antibiotics to their water. They went down to the pond, which had been made by diverting part of a nearby stream into a basin, and put fresh food and drinking water out for the ducks and the geese. They then fed the dogs, big, black, shaggy dogs, and let them out of their kennels to run around and terrorize the chickens. They then watched Ben while Mr. Callahan groomed their horses and Mrs. Callahan milked the cows. Ben stood on the rails of the fence and laughed as he watched the horses run out into the misty pasture, jumping and bucking and rolling about.
"Is that all?" an exhausted, mud and faeces-covered Lisa gasped.
"Yep," Mrs. Callahan said, lugging the pails of milk.
Lisa showered and got dressed. She wore her nicer pair of jeans with light blue blouse and a grey jacket. Brian wore a striped polo and khakis, and his faded old jacket.
After a hearty breakfast of bacon, fresh eggs, fresh milk, soymilk, orange juice, Cheerios, and oatmeal (Brian and Lisa politely refusing the bacon and taking soymilk instead of regular milk) the preparations for the feast began. Donald had put the turkey in the oven before breakfast, but it needed periodic checking and re-basting. Mr. Callahan also helped to prepare the turkey giblet dressing, preparing one batch with apple slices and raisins, and another, plain batch.
Brian and Lisa helped Mrs. Callahan with the non-turkey dishes. There were potatoes to be peeled for mashed potatoes, yams to be peeled for candied yams, green beans to be cut and steamed, fruit to be washed and peeled and cut for fruit salad, cranberries to boil, corn bread to bake, and onions to be prepared.
"What are the onions for June?" Lisa asked.
"Onion soup. Oh, its an old family recipe. My mother, June O'Shee, her maiden name was De Montblanc. She came from France, and this is-"
"An…old family recipe?"
"Yes…yes exactly."
"It has milk in it, right?"
"Yes, normally. Are you allergic to dairy, like we are?"
"You're allergic to dairy products?"
"Well, I am, Ben is severely, and Brian is a bit too. Don isn't, though."
"Well, I'm not allergic, its just that I feel the dairy industry is well, monstrous, and that it isn't right to drink milk that nature intended for baby cows."
"Well, yes. Anyway, Donald and my mother aren't allergic, nor are Sisters Cecilia and Patrick."
"Who are they?"
"Oh, old friends of my mothers. Nuns from the island of Tonga."
"Oh, cool. I actually learned a little Tonganese."
"You don't say? Anyway, I'm making a dairy batch and a non-dairy batch. It might taste a bit off though, with soymilk."
Ben sat the in front of the television all morning, watching 'Star Wars'.
"He really likes 'Star Wars'," Lisa commented, sitting on the couch with Brian, watching Ben mouth the lines and act out the fight scenes by himself.
"Sure does. Watched them ever since he was a kid. He nearly flipped when he saw them in theatres."
"Does he like the newer ones?"
"Well, kind of. He sat through them in theatres several times each, and he really liked the third one, because it has Darth Vader, but he had a hard time figuring out how they fit in, without Luke or Leia or Han Solo or…" he said, stopping because Ben had come over. "What is it, Benny?"
"Coo-bah-caw?"
"Chewbacca the Wookie!"
"RRROOOAAARRR!" Ben growled, grabbing Brian and wrestling with him on the floor. Lisa pulled back a bit, but, after repeating the question-response-growl-wrestling routine several times, they broke it up and Ben recommenced staring blankly at the screen, only to start making explosion noises and sound effects during the battle sequences.
Brian's grandma and her friends arrived around one thirty in the afternoon. They sat around for a while, drinking champagne and eating salted nuts, nougats, and toffees. The nuns entertained them with tales of their life on Tongatabu, eating meals cooked over hot coals in banana leaves, fishing in the warm, blue seas, going to school in a one-room missionary school, listening to stories in the firelight, celebrating annual festivals, and how, one morning, they awoke to a mighty roar and discover a new island rising from the sea. Both Lisa and Brian impressed them with their knowledge of the Tongan language. Brian's grandma, while thankful for the lovely gifts she had received and proud of her grandchild's financial success, she was critical of the lyrics and thematic content of some of The Springfield Nine's songs.
"Wasn't like that when I was young. Now, you two have another thing you're doing, this jazz side project? Now that's good music. You're the one who does the saxophone, correct?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Amazing! What you do…its incredible. You write most of the songs too, don't you dear?"
"Yes."
"Wonderful."
Dinner was finally ready around four o'clock. Everyone sat down in the dinning room around the crowded table. The air was thick with the smell of good food.
"Lisa, would you like to say grace?" Mr. Callahan asked.
"Er…sure," Lisa said cautiously. Brian had told her earlier how he had, conveniently, forgotten to even mention that Lisa was still semi-Buddhist and only Catholic in the sense she was in love with one. Brian had told her, before they arrived, that they would be studying her behaviour to determine her fidelity to the Faith. Though not as nearly as fervent as Brian, they were still fairly devout, and would scarcely approve of Brian's engagement to a Greek Orthodox Catholic, even less so a Protestant, even less so a Jew, and even less so a girl who had been raised Protestant, became Buddhist, and was now a semi-agnostic, semi-New Age Buddhist, albeit one with increasing love and appreciation for the Catholic Church. Brian, fortunately for all involved, had prepared her.
"In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Bless us, O Lord, in these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive, from Thy Bounty, through Christ, Our Lord, Amen. In the Name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen."
She let out an audible sigh of relief. She was glad that she remembered the entire thing.
The remainder of the meal passed without incident. Lisa enjoyed the corn bread, potatoes, yams, green beans, fruit salad, onion soup, and tofurky with cranberries. Brian and the others enjoyed their meals. Lisa watched as Brian ate helping after helping of the dressing. She remembered that he had once said that it was his favourite food. I'll have to get that recipe, if I'm going to be cooking for him.
They returned to the sitting room for dessert and coffee. The nuns told a few more stories about their native country, and Brian's grandmother told a few of her own stories, which took overly long due to her constant remembering of other, unrelated anecdotes, and her degrading short-term memory. She frequently remembered songs from her youth, but only knew, at most, the chorus and part of one of the verses.
After an hour or so of chatting the guest left. Lisa stayed inside and helped Mrs. Callahan with the dishes while the boys went and put the animals in for the night. Lisa tried her best to learn the most about her mother-in-law to be, while trying to endear herself to the woman.
The couple said goodnight to the Callahans and went back to the guest house. They showered and prepared for bed.
Lisa came out of the bathroom, and found Brian sitting on the foot of his bed. He sat, his hands barely touching, staring at the floor.
"Brian…? Brian, honey, are you okay?"
"I'm…I…just give me some…time…? I'm, I, I'm sorry. I just, you know," and gesticulated frustratedly, "hit…a little low point. I'm fine."
Lisa sat down next to him. She set her head on his shoulder, and kissed his neck. She hugged him, and felt him clinging tightly.
"What is it that's bothered you all these years?" It was her voice, but without any of the emotion her 'shrill, disagreeable voice' usually carried. It was low, and carried a seriousness it had rarely possessed.
"Regrets…a madman's regrets. The vivid memories of my offenses, my failings, the pain of reliving them in my dreams and in quiet solitude. They creep through my mind, jumping out from behind the corners of all my thoughts. Nearly ever chain of thought leads to them. Its not that I don't consider myself forgiven…I know, I know I am…but, my confidence, my confidence in the validity of my repentance…that feels like a sin. I've lived to lives to many times: saint and sinner. I've put up a front of goodness, projecting an image that I have never been, while living a life I hope to never return to. I've been lost in sin and debauchery while all around me see me as either a statue on a pedestal or an obnoxious wowser, a blue-nosed, moralistic, killjoy. And when that cover is blow, as it has been before, I am either seen as a fallen idol, something that was thought to be but never truly was, or am labelled the fraud and hypocrite I am. I think of the people I've hurt, the people I lied to and used. 'Good people are only my stepping stones'…there was a time I sang that with a devil's malice, not a penitent's remorse. I prayed, I prayed to the Devil, offering him myself if I could just be granted the ability to attain my wicked goals. I thought myself a god, a being of uncanny skill and cunning, to fool my friends and family. Even once, when caught, I fooled them with my pleas of ignorance and stupidity and innocent curiosity, and swore utter penitence, and was aquitted, only to betray them again. And then, after many manoeuvres and tricks and schemes and escapes from justice, I was caught. It was out. The mask was shattered, and all saw what had been festering behind it. I was so alone. All I had was gone with the opening of a door and the revelation that I was not a good boy, that I was not a model citizen and future this and great that, that I was as bad as any of them. If there was a moment I wished to die, it was at that moment. If there was a time when I hated myself, that I hated the world and everyone in it, it was as I rode home, crying to the hateful sky. I was alone, so alone, and wanted to die. I tried."
He raised his left arm, pulling back his sleeve, revealing faint pink lines running down from his wrist.
He paused, and gave a shuddering sigh. Tears streaked down each cheek.
"Sex, drugs, porn, vandalism, all just means of an end. Lying, making excuses, escaping the consequences of my actions, doing what I had been told to avoid all my life: that was the thrill, just as much as any drug or picture or girl I made out with at a party. And I'd cry, I'd run, I'd fall to the ground and pray and swear I'd never, never, never do it again. Then, the next day, a cruel word from some stupid, airhead, cheerleader girl, or word of some nasty rumour about me, or a teacher, an evil teacher's giving me a bad mark and a put-down, and I'd be there again, with or without my so-called friends, with or without drugs, horribly alone, and just wishing I had someone like you."
He sobbed into her shoulder.
"I know…I know you hate me…I know you think I'm crazy…maybe I am. Maybe I'm crazy and you…you're just another person I unload my problems on. I'm mad, I know."
"Shh…" she set his head on her lap, and ran her fingers through his hair, "Shhh…I have been there. I have felt all those feelings. Do you think I've never cried alone, that I've never wanted to die? Do you think I have never felt all the world against me, both by my fault and not by my fault? I've been shunned and alienated, rejected and cast out by those I thought my friends. I've felt as though I knew the Ultimate Truth and that everyone I told laughed. I've been there. I remember each one, burning vivid behind my eyes…" with her last words escaped perceptible venom, as she recalled how she hated all those who had been so cruel to her. "We will always feel such things, whether through our own fault, at the hands of others, or simply when we remember them. But we needn't suffer alone. I have you…and you me. We can share our pain and cry and then lay our heads on each others' lap. Don't suffer alone. I'm here for you."
"Never leave me."
"Never."