Part 1[]
My daughter-in-law looked me straight in the eye in my own kitchen and said, “Dorothy, maybe you should take your plate and eat in the den. We need the table space.”
It was Thanksgiving. I had been awake since 5:15 that morning. A 22-pound turkey had been brining since Tuesday night. Homemade cranberry sauce was chilling in the refrigerator. My mother’s sweet potato casserole was waiting for its brown sugar topping, green beans were ready with slivered almonds, and an apple pie sat cooling beside dinner rolls I had shaped by hand because my seven-year-old grandson, Oliver, had told me they were his favorite thing I made.
Eleven relatives were coming. Twelve of us counting me.
And Kristen had decided the person who should disappear from the Thanksgiving table was the woman who owned the house and cooked the meal.
I set my wooden spoon beside the stove.
“There’s room,” I said. “There has always been room.”
Kristen took a sip of wine. “It’ll be tight. You’re going back and forth to the kitchen anyway. It just makes sense.”
I asked her to get Patrick.
When my son walked into the kitchen, I told him exactly what his wife had suggested.
He glanced at Kristen, then at me.
“Mom,” he said, “come on. It’s just logistics.”
That was the moment I understood the problem was much bigger than one rude sentence.
