Thanksgiving

Mary J shuffles in with her niece, Kathy, and sits down in a dirty jacket at the table. Mary J’s lips are shriveled around a deflated balloon of a mouth, her face banged up by life’s bitter punches. She places an unsteady hand on the table and fingers the place setting. Asks me for coffee—which I fetch from the urn set up on a table across the room. Once we pass around the platters of turkey and stuffing and cranberries and potatoes, Mary J and Kathy eat in silence. They cut the meat into tiny pieces that they can chew, and lift plastic forks to their mouths with wind-chapped hands.

At the next table are Linda and her two boys, Martin and Rashim. Linda keeps her chin high, and collapses the stroller in one quick motion to store against the wall. She wears a black leather jacket, a scarf on her head—and sits at the end of the table with her two neatly dressed boys. I try to catch Linda’s eye, try to find a way to let her know that I am not what she sees. That we are more alike than she might guess. But Linda is too busy making this day okay for her sons, too busy to care about making me feel better…

As I look up, four men amble in and settle thenselves at the table. Mary J and Kathy continue to eat without talking at the other end. The men wear hooded sweatshirts under their heavy coats. They speak Spanish for the most part, and English a little bit. Carlos tells me that they are from Ecuador. That there is no work here. They do stone work, carpentry, landscaping, cleaning, he explains. But no work, no work. Carlos and his friends do not know about this holiday of too much, of everything covered in gravy. They know only their empty bellies, their empty pockets, their empty hearts. Carlos tells me of his daughter back home, that she is 14, that he hasn’t seen her since she was 9. No work, he says, as he spears a big slice of turkey with his fork…

Mary J and Kathy are nearly finished eating. I bring them two pieces of pumpkin pie, and another cup of coffee. Mary J tells me she likes it light and sweet. And as I place the coffee before her tired hands, she pulls out a battered wallet and shows me a picture of Harold, her lover who died last month. Of cancer, she says, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. In the picture, Harold is sleeping on a couch—but even so, he looks much younger than Mary J. I ask how they met, and Mary J explains that she met Harold pushing a grocery cart down Main Street. That was eight years ago, she says, staring at the picture, her eyes teary. We were very happy…

When Mary J and Kathy leave, John sits down. He is a small man with kind eyes. He tells me that he wasn’t sure he would come here today, that he has a sister nearby whose house he could go to. And I feel a flash of anger at this sister who would forget her brother today—but then I remember my own brother living his own troubled life in a state where so many plagued souls land. Down there with his own paper cup, his own quivering pride…

And then the vets: George and Raymond. George talks and talks: of the leaves he just raked around his yard, of boxing with Mike Tyson. Beside him, Raymond is quiet, his eyes focused on his plate. I learn that he was in the Navy—but it is civilian life that has nearly killed him... I’ve been hit by a car five times, he explained, as he struggled to sit. I held his bony arm, as he leaned against his cane and very slowly eased himself into the metal folding chair. I tease Raymond about staying out of the road in the future. But he does not laugh. Instead, he moves the plastic fork from the plate to his mouth, asking for seconds; and I remember that not everyone has the option of not walking in the road, not walking with their backs to speeding cars and souped-up SUVs...

Later we will stroll along the manicured streets of my neighborhood and laugh at all the folly: the ill-designed dormer, the poorly sited house, rhododendron bushes that have overtaken the view. The sun is on our faces as we walk. Already Mary J, Kathy, Harold, Linda, Martin, Rashim, Carlos, John, George and Raymond have been lost to the names printed boldly on the mailboxes along this curved, smooth lane on a lovely afternoon in November.
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