Their last Thanksgiving together was not their best ever. He wanted to go out. She wanted to stay home, do it herself. You don’t know how to make a turkey, he said.
I’ve done it before, she said. She had made a turkey one Thanksgiving, her first year of sobriety, twenty-five years earlier, she made a turkey and her new sober friends came over, and if she could make a decent turkey coming out of the fog of alcoholism she could probably do it again now.
It’s too much trouble for just two people, he said.
Three, she said. Our friend K doesn’t have plans, he’ll bring something.
It’s too much, it won’t come out good, I don’t want to cook, he said.
I’m not asking you to cook. I’m saying I will cook. I’ve done it before. It came out good. Aren’t you the one who always wanted me to cook? She said that to herself.
She made a turkey and it came out good, but the meal and the conversation beyond that are forgotten.