Despite her protests (waste of time, prior knowledge, rank sexism), Emily found that she could not escape the Home Economics class that was mandatory for ninth graders at Grosvenor School. She groused. She bargained. She reasoned. She could not get out of it.
"You don't understand!" she finished: the cri du coeur of fourteen-year-olds around the world.
"It'll be useful," suggested her mother, who was sympathetic, if only Emily had known. "Think of being able to fix up your own clothes and make them unique. You've always liked crafty things."
Emily, sitting at the kitchen island over an after school snack of cinnamon toast, consulted the printed course outline. "I can sew things already if I need to. Kitchen aprons and - what even is this? - jam shorts are not crafty. This is antiquated. Why is it mandatory? If there were boys at the school, would they make them do carpentry or car shop or something?"
"Well, they're simple to make. And shouldn't everyone know basic carpentry and car stuff?" her mother held up a hand to forestall the explosion. "I wish I did. You know, you're ahead of the game. I bet most of the girls won't ever have used a sewing machine. It's just a fluke I learned in New Guinea, or I couldn't have taught you."
This was true. Living in various Papuan villages far from the modern city centers, the young Lightman family had been plunged into rural self-reliance when it came to general upkeep. Emily, who was a very mobile aged three, and Cal, who couldn't have cared less about his clothing, made for a lot of work. Since there was no way Zoe or Cal could manage the pile with a needle and thread, Cal had picked up an old sewing machine from a thrift shop during one of his supply trips to Port Moresby. It made the lightbulbs flicker in the cottage, and occasionally tripped the gas-powered generator into shutting down in protest, but it worked.
Zoe was careful, and planned ahead, and her results were far neater, though she loathed every minute. Cal went for volume. Once he'd started on the basket of clothes-mending, he didn't stop until it was empty. He found it soothing, and satisfyingly productive, even if his thoughts were often far from the seams. And the family stayed more or less properly clad for the two years of their jungle jaunt.
"I could just buy a stupid apron for ten bucks, and it'd be way better than anything I'll end up making," Emily grumbled, arms crossed.
"Maybe, but like I said, it's useful. Trust me, professional repairs do not come cheap. And you know, just because something's old fashioned doesn't mean it's bad. Those skills are valuable."
"Whatever," Emily sighed, meaning she was starting to warm up to the idea. "It's the having to do it that I hate. And an apron? Really?"
"Also useful," Zoe pointed out, and Emily groaned dismally. Her mother regarded her for a moment. Emily felt a lecture incoming, but Zoe's face was an interesting study in contrasts.
"Listen, kiddo. You know why Dad got us that sewing machine?"
"Well…I mean, to fix all our clothes and things?"
"You remember he'd go away for the whole day every couple of weeks? Dad and the headman of the village and a couple of the other men, on that old propeller plane, to pick up all the supplies?"
"I remember the plane." She'd never been allowed to go with her father, no matter how much she begged.
Zoe gave a nod. "Yeah. You and I stayed in the village because it was safer. A family of foreigners like us would have been easy pickings for kidnapping. Port Morseby's a dangerous place. So we needed to be able to do as much as we could for ourselves, out in the villages. It wasn't just about keeping our clothes together. It was about not being too reliant on a city that needed an airplane to get to and wasn't safe anyway. And not just getting a constant stream of new stuff like people do here. It wasn't what I'd planned to do with a Harvard law degree, but I learned a crap ton I never would have, otherwise. Don't knock domestic or manual stuff. Those kinds of skills let you step out of this sheltered city life and do the kind of things your dad and I got to do. I hope you get to see what's out there, too."
Groundbreaking anthropological field research in Papua New Guinea. Starting up an NGO to teach rural women about their legal rights and how to get involved in politics, in her mother's case. Her father had built a boutique consulting business in a world-class city. Her mother's NGO was still active, and now she was an Assistant Attorney General.
"You were too little to remember, but it wasn't my degree that got the women to trust me. It was you, honey. And your dad. Talking with the women about our families, sharing day to day tips, sharing food. That's where I had to start - letting them teach me how to survive and keep us going, out there. So maybe sewing class shouldn't be mandatory here in DC," her mother temporized, "But there's something to be said for knowing you can pick up a skill when you have to."
"Fine," Emily sighed, feeling rather out of her depth.
Like her mother, Emily was never entirely satisfied with anything she produced, and like her father, she wasn't going to let anything stop her. The plain navy blue canvas bib apron she sewed in class was quite adequate, if a little uneven, but she wrinkled her nose at it.
"It's awful," she said, standing in the kitchen and holding it out like a piece of filthy laundry.
"So I see," Cal made a show of examining it carefully for defects. "So awful you got nearly full marks. Well done, darling. And you never have to do another. What more d'you want?"
"I just - I still hate the class. It's a waste of time. It should be an elective."
"I dunno," Cal said, "There's value in knowing how things are put together, don't you think?"
Emily rolled her eyes. First her hyper-achieving mother and now this. "I know about sweatshop labor. And fashion design."
"Yeah, but I mean basic stuff. Not just running round to the shops to pick something up. This has value. You know it's got value, 'cos you put the time and energy into it."
"And a blood sacrifice or two," Emily nodded at a tiny pinprick mark along a seam.
"Well, that's that, then."
"What's what?"
"This is too valuable to let go."
He slipped the neck strap over his head, and did up the ties around his back. He wasn't a tall man, but Emily was smaller. The ties sat midway down his ribs, and the apron just covered his front down to the thigh.
"See? Perfect." He pulled her in by the back of her head and kissed her dubious brow.
He wore the blue apron every time he cooked. Zoe laughed until she wept, which hadn't happened for a very long time, and Emily groaned for the first few months and was reduced to eye-rolling thereafter. It became more of a habit than anything. The apron grew soft from regular washing, and the ties were knotted at the ends to stop them fraying.
From time to time, Emily thought about replacing it with another apron that fit properly, but somehow she never got around to it. It made her mother smile even during really awful days, and it was just one of Dad's many idiosyncrasies now.
When Zoe moved out of the family house a year later, there was a great general sorting and packing-up of old family junk. Even though her parents were far better off living apart, they were trying hard to be civil, if not friendly, for her sake. Cal kept pointing out that Zoe didn't have to scrape up every last particle of her existence. She was welcome to keep things at the house, and there was no rush to sort out what should be done with the inevitable piles of family crap that nobody really claimed as their own.
A good many things disappeared during that time, however. Emily suspected both her parents had taken the opportunity to quietly dispose of things they'd never wanted.
Emily followed their example, and tossed a fair amount of general childhood clutter. Including the old kitchen apron. It should have never come home in the first place, she thought.
It wasn't until the next September that its absence was noted.
"What's wrong?" she asked, wandering into the kitchen. Her father was opening drawers and rummaging behind doors. "What have you lost?"
"Apron," he said shortly, his head in the pantry.
"What?"
"That apron of yours," he repeated, pulling back to look at her. "Want to get started on dinner. Where's it gone to? Laundry?"
They'd planned a Labor Day family dinner, before Emily's school term got busy again. Zoe would be over soon, and they'd see how long they could all stay under the same roof. Her parents had started to be able to talk again like reasonable adults, without screaming matches or (she shuddered to think) illicit hookups that she definitely wasn't supposed to know about.
The lack of pressure helped a great deal, Emily thought. Zoe could decide at any time that she'd had enough, and say goodnight. Cal could do the same when they had dinners at Zoe's place. They'd been working at not taking it personally, and understanding when the other party had simply had enough. It was nice to see them being surprised by laughing together, after the last few years.
"Oh…seriously, Dad, it was getting really old."
His face fell, and she felt squirmy. Tonight was going to be stressful enough.
"Em, you didn't?"
She folded her arms and shrugged a defensive shoulder. "It's not like it was an actual proper apron on you. You only wore it to make me feel better, and I did."
"Yeah, but it…" he leaned against the counter and regarded her. Not reading her. Just seeing her for the first time in a while. "Nah, you're right. It was fun. And it was yours to do what you like with."
He looked a little devastated, though, she thought. Maybe it was supposed to make her mother smile tonight, too. That would have been the sort of thing he'd do.
"Well, sorry. I didn't think it was that big a deal, honestly."
She handed him a clean tea-towel to tuck into his waistband instead.
She thought once again of getting him a nice Dad-style apron, something with big pockets and a loop for a hand towel. What would he like? Black, to hide all stains, probably. Matching oven mitts, maybe. Real cook's gear. Not a teenager's sewing project.
That's when the idea hit.
She was her father's daughter after all, and that meant the same love of the totally absurd and irreverent was in her blood.
What about the most over-the-top teenager's sewing project possible?
She didn't say a word about it that night, but turned it over in her mind.
It turned out to be a fairly mellow evening, by Lightman standards. Her mother was at her most motherly, which was rare in Zoe now that Emily was nearly grown. It was weird being fussed at by both of them at once in concert, not sniping at each other over things they worried about in their daughter, like their concern for her was a valid excuse for them to vent at each other. Most of the verbal barbs between them were carefully muted or deflected. She pretended not to notice, and her parents were happy enough (or preoccupied enough) to pretend not to know how much she picked up on.
Zoe did not stay overnight, and her father did not offer to drive her home and stay for a nightcap, which made Emily wonder if Zoe had even told him about breaking up with Roger. Zoe had given Roger back the engagement ring, but then she'd never worn it consistently, saying she was out of the habit. Which should have been a large red flag, Emily thought. Not that it seemed to stop her dad. Or her mother. At least it was just them - they'd been married for fourteen years, and relationships were complicated things - but she had to work hard not to wonder what lines they considered uncrossable with other people.
Sometimes, she thought, in this family the less secrets that get told, the more peaceful it is.
She started her research the next day. She had no idea where to begin, but it turned out there were endless websites devoted to vintage apron patterns. It took a surprisingly short time to find a pattern she thought would work, for a frilly 1930's housewife's apron.
She decided to omit the frills, but found an eye-strainingly garish floral print of hot pink, blue and canary yellow, on white cotton. At the very least it would make him smile internally.
There was no trouble about using the sewing room at school over lunch hours. The Home Ec teacher practically tossed her the keys to the room and offered any help she needed. Which, to Emily's surprise, she was happy to accept. Cutting out a pattern looked easy enough, but there were a hundred and one ways to ruin the fabric, and all kinds of tricks to pinning and basting. And then there was the lace edging, which took ages to pin smooth, and the piping around some of the seams. She hadn't known piping trim came pre-made, but it saved her hours of work once the teacher told her what to look for in the fabric shop.
It wasn't difficult, but it was painstaking to get just right. She came to understand her mother's need to check and re-check every little thing before sewing it down. And her father's impatient need to get it done, hasty or not.
She gave it to her father in late October.
It had been a rough week for both of them. She came home on a rainy night to find her father heating up a tin of beans on the stove. He barely grunted a hello. She didn't say a word, but started to make the toast. She waited until his back was turned, as he went to fetch a couple of eggs to fry, and then slipped the apron out of her school bag on the kitchen island.
"You're making a mess," she told him lightly, shaking it out, "This might help."
He got it instantly.
"Oh, Em," he said. "You made this?"
He picked her straight up off the ground and hugged her tightly.
"You're such a marshmallow, for such a strict old scientist," she muttered into his shoulder.
"Well, no need to tell the neighbourhood, is there?"
"It's not like you have to use it, it's just - "
"Of course I'm using it. It's meant to be used." He stood her back on her feet. "Give us a hand here."
Grinning, she did, doing up the button at the back of the neck straps and smoothing out the side ties she'd ironed earlier.
"It's very you," was her verdict. Oddly, it was, in a visually aggravating but sentimental kind of way. It clashed perfectly with the baggy jeans and pullover top he was wearing - the sort of clothing he'd been migrating towards as Zoe's influence faded over his office suits and button-downs.
"I'm keeping this for special occasions," he told her seriously, followed by a peck on her cheek. "Brilliant, Em." He turned back to the saucepan of beans, and nodded at her to check on the toast. "Which reminds me. Thanksgiving soon. Mum's Roger. You like him, yeah? Got used to him by now?"
Oh, no.
"Uh. Dad, didn't - Mom didn't tell you? Roger's not…"
"Tell me what? Oh, blithering shite, Emily, don't tell me they've split up."
She froze up a little. "Mom should really…but yeah. Few months ago."
Cal had the grace to look a little sick. "Not because of…"
"No, not because of," she assured him, racking up another two slices in the toaster. No point in pretending she didn't understand him. At least she didn't think it was because of her parents' occasional post-divorce encounters, though that was a symptom. She hadn't wanted to call Roger boring, because he made Zoe happy and gave her a ton of emotional stability. But that was the problem. Zoe missed the flare-ups. Roger would make someone an ideal supportive husband, and Zoe loved him, but she could only go so long without a good air-clearing, blood-pressure-lowering sparring match.
"Ah, well, never mind. Thought I should do the grown up thing and invite them both for Thanksgiving. Just Mum and us then?"
"Oh, do we - " she glanced up and caught her father's expression. He was making a real effort. She hadn't been a big Christmas fan for a few years, and Thanksgiving got on her last political nerve. But Cal was trying to keep a door open for her mother to be part of things at the house. "Dad, you know it's a terrible thing to celebrate, right? Like, I know they don't do it in England, but d'you know the whole history of it here? It's awful. Can't we just have an ordinary family dinner?"
"Plenty to be thankful for, love, isn't there?"
"That's not the point."
"Only point right now is that it's important to your mum to go through the rituals. Something to keep this little family safety pinned together. You can wave whatever protest flag you want when you're in your own home. But for now let's do this and give your mother what she wants. All right?"
She sighed. "Fine, I get it. Don't mention Roger unless she brings him up first, is my advice." Then a better thought popped up. "Can we have Gillian over, then? She likes those kinds of rituals, too."
She kept her eyes on buttering the toast and tried to keep the excitement out of her voice. Luckily, the thought struck her father so strongly that he didn't notice. They'd had Gillian and Alec over for Thanksgiving a few years before, when everyone was still married. It had been fun for everyone except Alec, who'd seemed anxious all night. But since this was the first Thanksgiving since Gillian's divorce, she thought it was worth another try. It had to be rough on Gillian, contemplating holidays alone after having had someone to share them with for so long.
"It's a nice idea, darling, but I'm not sure Gillian wants to deal with Zoe and me at once if she doesn't have to. She's got to run interference often enough at work. I tell you what, though, we could have her over for the picking of the leftovers. That's an American custom I can make sense of."
"The shattered remains of the bird."
"And all the fixin's, as you call them. Yeah. Let's have Gill over the day after. Send her home with a parcel, too. That'll be good."
Wherever her father had just gone in his thoughts didn't include the frying eggs, until Emily reminded him: "Not too done for me, please."
He checked the eggs and flipped one of them. "Come on, let's dish up."
"You going to wear that apron to dinner?"
"'Course I am." He threw her a fond look. "You're a gemily, Emily."
"You're not too bad, Dad."
As far as stupid old family rituals went, she thought, they had some pretty stupid ones worth hanging onto. And just maybe this could be the start of a new one. She wouldn't invite Gillian for leftovers, she thought, but something separate and distinct.
Not Thanksgiving, but Thanksgotten.
Some Thanksgotten recipe ideas:
Savoury potato cakes: mix leftover stuffing and mashed potatoes. Mold into balls and press flat. Fry until crispy.
Turkey Corn Chowder: mix chopped turkey, mashed potatoes (or chopped roast potatoes), gravy and corn. Add extra stock and hot milk, herbs and black pepper. Simmer down, and thicken with more potatoes if desired. One-pot meal, good for dunking leftover bread or rolls.
Irish Potato Scones: mixed mashed potatoes with half their volume in flour, to make a stiff dough. Pat into rounds about 6" around and 1/4" thick. Fry in a little butter or strained bacon drippings until crisp. Cut into wedges.