Thanksgiving: Part Two

Dave and I padded down the seven cream-carpeted stairs and joined the rest of the grandchildren around the TV. My brother and cousin Jake had eyes riveted to the screen, elbows extended, thumbs a blur: the Boyer competition had already been aroused in a James Bond video game. My 17-year-old sister lay sleeping on the pale yellow-and-blue striped couch, long brown hair concealing her face and the shoulders of her wine-red cowl neck sweater. My youngest cousin, Libby, was abosrbed in the smaller screen of her pink and heavily-stickered PSP. This down here was our sanctuary before dinner, we 6 of the 9 grandchildren, when you count Dave. Unfortunately, I knew I couldn't hide for long in the basement. As the now-married oldest granddaughter, I had fallen in a gap where I was no longer a child but not quite an adult. But it still meant that I had to go upstairs.

It was a pleasant surprise to find the kitchen a well-oiled machine, my father videotaping as my uncle and father shuffled a smorgesborg of dishes made and brought by every member of the family. My Uncle Scott had arranged a beautiful fruit bowl, brimming with dark berries and rimmed with half-moon orange slices. My father had brought this deep deep dish filled with creamy sweet potato and topped with a very thick layer of brown sugar and nuts (I only ate it for the topping). My Aunt Susan brought her signature chocolate chip cookies, a secret recipe where the embedded chocolate chips remain half-melted. The customary white tablecloth draped over the edges and doilies protected it from the worst of the stains. Oh, the doilies.

As casserole dishes and tin foil pans were transferred from the oven and stove top and fridge, Nana assumed her typical chair and self-declared position of overseer, and as each dish traveled to the table she shrillly reminded each carrier that they needed to put down a paper doiley. My Uncle Scott received said reminder, and the rest of us scrambled to put one down as the sweet potato casserole began to burn his hands through his powder-blue oven mitts. "Ouch ouch OUCH," he yelled as the rest of continued to chorus "Doilies! Doilies doilies DOILIES!" like the gulls from "Finding Nemo". Once the doiley was down and the casserole out of his mitts, my uncle stepped back. My father's blue eyes twinkled as he teased my Uncle Scott about being oh so Martha Stewart in his oven mitts. Scott gave his older brother a stony evil eye, stuck out his tongue, and held up one oven mitt toward him. "Can you guess what I'm doing right now?" The chaos of Boyers around the table laughed; Dave smiled shyly.

Lucky, Scott and Susan's young beagle, kept raising up on her hindlegs, her little black nose level with the edge of the white-cloaked table. Her attempts were enough of a threat to push the giant glass platter piled with turkey meat closer to the center; she was eternally hopefully, but never lucky. As the dining room filled with people, Nana asked loudly over the clamor of Corningware and silverware who was going to get the Boyer table after she died. Such questions have become a norm. For the past 15 years, my grandmother has had a habit of reminding us of how old she is and that she is going to die soon, when are we going to ever call or come visit her or go through her attic and take some furniture home? The past three times I've seen her, she asks me to walk around the house and make a list of the things I want after she passes away. Often, a ruled yellow tablet and dull pencil are shoved into my hands, even when I remind her that I've already made my list, yes, I saved it, you told me to save it because you said you would lose it. After a beat of awkward quite, her question about the Boyer table was glossed over with everyone saying "not right now - let's take a picture".

All twelve of us (and the beagle) squashed our bodies between the stocky china cabinet and the head of the table, the end closest to the door where my grandfather always always sits. Nana's "Why I Love Boston" cross-stitch hung above our heads, heads that were muttering through gritted smiles, "Why is this taking so long? Why are you balancing the camera on a cup? You should get a plate, no, a bigger plate. OW, someone stepped on my foot. C'mon, I can't hold the dog like this forever. Why haven't you tried putting the camera on a plate yet?!" And then the cameras began to blink their little orange eyes, and my Uncle and I stumbled around the counter to the other side of the table. I rushed in beneath my sister; with our long hair and dad-shaped faces and mom-colored eyes, we're getting harder to tell apart the older we get. The flash on my camera brightly illuminated the duck-shaped porcelain gravy boat, and in the back shadows beneath the bottom-third of the dining room's brass chandelier, there we all are, smiling and looking at the camera, most of three generations squished into a single picture frame.