by Julia Gibson
Like many, I have a perverse relationship with holidays. I insist on doing them to the hilt, making all the food from scratch, hovering over anyone who dares to try to help, telling them how it should be done. Then I get cranky at everyone for sitting around eating stuffed mushrooms while I curse the meat thermometer. The turkey’s never right, and I always grumble that I’ll never make another in mylifetime.
One Thanksgiving, my grownup daughter and I were left to ourselves. I wouldn’t have to cook for twenty. We could play Scrabble all day, or go to the movies and have a Raisinet feast.
“Let’s feed the homeless,” Miranda said. “We’ll make all the food and take it around to people on the street.”
It seemed wacky, even reckless. Wouldn’t the street people be flocking to the massive shelter feeds? If there were any takers, wouldn’t they be the ones who were so wacked out that Thanksgiving didn’t register? Would they hiss predictions of celestial doom at us in return for our Lady Bountiful generosity?
“I knew it,” she said. “You never think any of my ideas will work. Forget it. What do you want to do for Thanksgiving?”
I thought I’d better go along, just to show that I could. And, as an experiment, why couldn’t I try not micromanaging her project?
“I’ll get the wine,” she said. “I thought the men especially would appreciate those little individual bottles – it’s not great wine, but they won’t mind.”
I wound up buying the wine, because I had to do the shopping anyway. And I had to make the turkey, because I had the experience, and I had to make the stuffing and my homemade applesauce, and three kinds of pie. She could do the mashed potatoes. I did my best not to tell her how much butter to put in. And I held myself back from wresting the knife from her grasp when she carved the breast meat in bricks instead of elegant slices. Together we assembled the food on divided paper plates, tucked foil on top, tied ribbon around plastic cutlery wrapped in festive napkins.
Then we were in the car, the trunk loaded with laundry baskets piled with our giveaway dinners. Miranda had her can of Mace handy. But the first people we approached – two men sitting on a patch of grass in Griffith Park – were clear-eyed and seemed sane. “Would you like a homemade Thanksgiving dinner?” Miranda said.
“Okay,” one said, and smiled broadly. They seemed new to the country. We imagined that sleeping in the park was an adventure to them, and that soon they’d have a place to stay with the family they’d come to find.
It didn’t take long to give away all the plates. A scruffy man at a bus bench peeked under the foil and sniffed. “That’s a lot of food,” he said. “I’ll eat half now and save the rest for later.”
Everyone was gracious and polite, and they did appreciate the wine. “I don’t usually partake in alcoholic beverages,” one man said. “But on this occasion, I’ll make an exception.”
The last delivery was to a huddled lump under the Hollywood freeway. He was in bad shape, thin, dirty, hollow-eyed. “That’s probably going to be his last meal,” Miranda said, locking herself back into the car. Darkness surrounded. We drove home fast.
The food we’d left on the stove was cold. We were too hungry to heat it. We held hands and made a blessing. Her hands were small and cool.
“It’s the best Thanksgiving ever,” she said.
“It is,” I said. I didn’t say that the turkey was too dry. It was, but it filled you up.