The Second Thanksgiving

The Keeper of Hours

Chapter 45: The Second Thanksgiving

Yvonne started the turkey at four in the morning.

She had decided, on Monday at the butcher shop when she had picked up the fourteen-pound Brinkman turkey she had ordered, that this Thanksgiving she would do the whole meal her mother's way. The full version. The four in the morning brining wash, the five-thirty stuffing preparation, the five forty-five oven, the pies out by seven, the side dishes through the morning, the house smelling, by ten, of her mother's kitchen on the fourth Thursday of November.

She had told Tiana on Tuesday. She had told Carl on Monday night. She had not, in any of the telling, said the sentence aloud: I want to be my mother today.

Tiana, on Tuesday, had said only: Mom. You do it the way you need to do it. I will be there at four in the morning to do the reading. You do whatever you need in the kitchen. I will stay out of the way.

Yvonne had said: No, baby. You come at three forty-five. You read. I will read with you. Then I will cook. You help if you want. You sit with coffee if you want. I am not — Tiana, I am not going to be my mother alone in this kitchen. I am going to be my mother with you beside me.

Tiana had said: Yes, Mom.

At three forty-five on Thursday, November twenty-fifth, Tiana came in through the kitchen door.

The kitchen smelled, already, of the brine. Yvonne was at the sink in her housedress and the apron Mama Tate had worn on every Thanksgiving for thirty years — which had been, in July, finally moved from the drawer where Yvonne had been keeping it to the hook by the stove, which was where Mama Tate had kept it.

Tiana hugged her mother.

"Mom. You beat me here."

"Baby. I was not going to beat you. I was going to be awake when you walked in. That is what Mama did when I used to come over on holiday mornings. She was awake. She was not in the kitchen yet. She was in the chair. I — baby, I am awake and in the kitchen. I am ahead of Mama's schedule by four steps. I am adjusting as I go."

"You are fine, Mom."

"Yes."

They went to the front room. Yvonne dried her hands. They sat — Tiana in Eldridge's chair, Yvonne on the couch, both of them with small mugs of coffee Yvonne had poured. Tiana opened the composition book.

She read.

She read the active list. She read the legacy pages. She read her grandmother's entry at the last line — Ola Mae Tate. January 5, 2027. Mother of this book. Went home well. The keeping continues. — and she read it in her own clean voice that did not break.

Yvonne had, since September, been reading the legacy pages on Saturdays. This morning Tiana had asked to do it all. Yvonne had said yes. Yvonne had known, without Tiana saying, that today Yvonne would be in the kitchen until the afternoon and could not afford to spend the reading weeping at the legacy line if the weeping came. Tiana had taken the reading.

At the end, after the amen, they sat for a moment.

Then Yvonne said: "Baby."

"Yes, Mom."

"I am going to cook."

"I am going to help."

"I want you to peel. I am not a good peeler. I am a good cutter. I want you on the peeling."

"Yes, Mom."

By ten the house was warm.

The turkey was in the oven. The pies — sweet potato and pecan, both of them Mama Tate's recipes from the small stained index cards that had been in the recipe box since 1968 — were out and cooling. The dressing was prepped. The collards were in the big pot on the back burner.

Marcus came over at ten-thirty with a bag of last-minute items Yvonne had texted him to pick up. He also brought the apple pie he had made in his Getwell Road apartment last night — which Yvonne had, over the summer, officially ratified as the third pie of Thanksgiving, because Yvonne had decided after Marcus had brought it last year as the new fourth-generation addition to the menu that she was going to institutionalize it.

Curtis came at eleven with a small covered dish — his grandmother's sweet potatoes — and a small pie he had made last night in his grandmother's kitchen, which he had sheepishly presented at the door and which Yvonne had received with the small steady matriarch's acceptance she had been developing all fall: Curtis, you bring a pie to this table, you put it on the counter. We will eat it.

Tiana watched her mother do this.

She thought: Mom is — Mom is taking the weight.

The Hightowers came at twelve-fifteen.

Reggie was driving. Sheryl was in the passenger seat. Naomi was in the back in a small brown velvet dress with small brown tights and the small pale blue handkerchief, which Sheryl had put in the pocket because today was a Big Day by the informal standard Sheryl had been tracking.

Naomi was five and eleven months. She would be six in February. She had grown over the fall in the small way five-year-olds grow, and she was visibly different from the girl Tiana had last hugged two weeks ago. The small changes compounded.

She came up the porch with Reggie's hand.

At the top of the steps she stopped. She looked around.

"Cousin Tiana."

"Baby."

"Last year Great-Grandma was on this porch on Thanksgiving."

"She was, baby."

"I am remembering."

"I am too."

"Is it all right if I say she was here?"

"Baby. Yes. You say it as many times as you want to today. We want to hear it."

"Okay."

She walked into the house.

She walked through the front room — her eye going to Eldridge's chair with the small quilt folded on it — and then to the kitchen. Yvonne was at the stove. Naomi walked up and, without being told, hugged Yvonne around the waist.

"Grandma Yvonne."

"Baby."

"Happy Thanksgiving."

"Happy Thanksgiving, baby. You go tell Carl hello. He is in the carport with something."

Naomi went.

Sheryl, in the kitchen doorway, watched.

She said: "Yvonne."

"Sheryl."

"She has been preparing for today since yesterday."

"I knew she would."

"She told Reggie and me on Tuesday night at supper that she wanted to come. She said — Yvonne, she said Grandma. I know Great-Grandma is not going to be at Park this year. I still want to go. The house wants us."

Yvonne set down the spoon.

"Sheryl. Bring her here on Thanksgivings. Every year. Do not ask. She is part of the family. She will be at this kitchen on fourth Thursdays until she is forty. Tell her that today. Tell her on the ride home. The house wants her. The house wants all of you. Every year."

"Yes, Yvonne."

They were ten at the table.

Yvonne at the head — in Mama Tate's chair, which Carl had brought in from the front room at her instruction. Carl to her right. Marcus to Carl's right. Tiana to Marcus's right. Then Curtis. At the foot, Reggie. Up the other side: Sheryl, Naomi in the chair of welcome with the small booster, then an empty chair they had laid a place at anyway, and then the chair Yvonne had moved to her left for herself from the original head-of-table — which the chair Yvonne had been using for sixty-one Thanksgivings as a daughter before this one.

The empty chair was Mama Tate's.

It had been Yvonne's idea.

Yvonne had set the place Monday night with a small blue plate and a small glass of water and a small folded cloth napkin. She had told Tiana on Tuesday, quietly, that she had been sitting with the idea of the empty chair for two weeks and had decided she needed it. Baby. Not for everyone. For me. I need to see that chair at this table today with a plate. I know she is in the cloud. I know she is not going to sit in it. But the plate is the small honor. I am going to honor her today by having the plate. If nobody else needs it, that is fine. I need it.

Tiana had said: Yes, Mom.

The family, when they sat, understood without being told. Sheryl, at her seat, had put her hand briefly over the chair's backrest. Curtis had nodded to it when he sat. Naomi, in her booster, had said — in the small clear voice of a five-year-old who named what she saw: Great-Grandma's plate. Sheryl had said: Yes, baby. Naomi had nodded, satisfied.

Marcus said the blessing.

He said it briefly. He ended with Carl's line, which had become over the year the family's line: And Lord, we lift up those who are not at this table but whose names are in this house. We lift up Mama Tate. We lift up the empty plate. Amen.

Amen, the others said.

Naomi said her own amen a beat after the others, with the small five-year-old seriousness she had been bringing to blessings for a year.

They ate.

The meal went for two hours.

Yvonne had been worried, on Monday at the stove, that the meal would be hard. The meal was not hard. The meal was, she would say later to Carl in the bedroom, one of the easier hours of the year. The family had arranged itself without needing direction. Curtis, at his first Thanksgiving at this table, slid into the pattern the way Tiana had slid into the chair in January. He did not, for the first thirty minutes, say much. He listened. By forty-five minutes he was telling a story about a law school class that made Marcus laugh.

At one-forty Patrice called from Houston. Yvonne put her on speaker. The family said hello. Ruth, on Patrice's end, wanted to know if Naomi was at the table, and Naomi — who had been told she was getting a call — said yes, Cousin Ruth, I am eating, with the small ratifying dignity she was increasingly bringing to phone calls. Ruth said Cousin Naomi, I am eating too. Happy Thanksgiving. They had been practicing their small cousin-call dialogue for a month. It worked.

At two Stephen Pruitt called from Detroit. Brenda and Ola got on too. Ola was thirteen now. She had, over the fall, decided she wanted to come to Memphis for her fourteenth birthday in May — which was the same weekend as Mother's Day — to see her Great-Aunt Yvonne and Cousin Tiana and the house her father's mother had stood up in, in a meeting in 1978. Yvonne had agreed in October when Ola's mother Brenda had floated the idea.

At two-fifteen Folake called from Lagos. It was eleven at night in Nigeria. She called briefly. Ifeanyi, she reported, was still in remission and had, this November, entered secondary school. The neuroblastoma had not returned. The keeping, on the Lagos end, was working. Folake said so in the plain voice of a pediatrician stating the data. The family, in the kitchen in Memphis, amen'd her.

At two-forty a text came in on Tiana's phone. It was Tamika in Oakland. Tamika had, Tiana would explain to the table afterward, written only rarely since April. The text said: Tiana. Finished the letters last week. Forty-two letters. The box is empty. Happy Thanksgiving. Tell Yvonne her mother reached me through her mother. Tamika.

Tiana set her phone on the table.

She read the text aloud.

Yvonne, at the head of the table, set her fork down.

She said, quietly: "Tiana."

"Yes, Mom."

"Write that in the book tonight."

"Yes, Mom."

"Write it in on Tamika's back page. Exactly as she wrote it. Forty-two letters finished. The reading is done."

"Yes, Mom."

Curtis, who had heard the whole conversation with the small unobtrusive attention he had been bringing to the table all day, said: "Aunt Mika finished."

"Yes, Curtis."

"Pamela told me she might be done by November."

"She is done."

"That one has been moving a long time."

"Yes, Curtis."

After the meal the family moved to the front room.

The pies came out at three-thirty. They ate the pies slowly. Marcus's apple pie was declared by Carl to have improved since last year. Curtis's pie, which turned out to be a chess pie he had made at his grandmother's kitchen table from a recipe card he had found in the back of his grandmother's recipe box in August, was passed around and received the small family round of respectful silences that new pies earned at this table when they passed muster.

Naomi fell asleep on Sheryl's lap at four-forty.

The family sat. The front room was warm. The small lamp was on. The pecan tree was bare against the dusk. Yvonne, in Eldridge's chair with the small quilt over her lap, had her hand in Carl's. Tiana was on the floor at her mother's feet with her head against her mother's knee. Marcus was on the small couch. Curtis was in the small wooden chair by the door. Reggie was on the small loveseat.

Sheryl, across from Yvonne, said: "Yvonne."

"Sheryl."

"You did Thanksgiving."

"I did."

"You did it your mother's way."

"I did."

"How do you feel."

Yvonne did not, for a moment, answer.

She said, after a while: "Sheryl. I feel like I got across something today. I have been standing up to it for eleven months. Today I got across. I did not know it till the table went quiet over Tamika's text and I looked up and realized I was sitting in my mother's place hearing what the Lord had done in Oakland. I was at the head. It did not hurt the way I thought it would. It just felt true. That is new for me."

"Yes, Yvonne."

"If the Lord gives me the years, I can do this again."

"Yes, baby."

"The Lord willing."

"The Lord willing."

Reggie said, from the loveseat: "Yvonne."

"Reggie."

"My family — Sheryl and me and Naomi — we are grateful for today."

"Brother Hightower. You do not have to thank me."

"I am thanking you anyway. Mother Tate would have expected me to thank you. I am doing it for her."

Yvonne smiled. "Yes, Reggie."

The Hightowers left at six with a sleeping Naomi in Reggie's arms. Curtis left at seven to go back to his grandmother's house. Marcus stayed until eight-thirty, helping with the dishes, before driving to his apartment.

Tiana stayed at the house through the evening.

By nine she was in Eldridge's chair with the composition book on her lap. Yvonne was on the couch. Carl was in the small wooden chair. The kitchen was quiet. The leftovers were divided into their small containers. The pies had been wrapped. The small plate at the empty chair had been taken and washed — Yvonne had done it herself at seven-thirty, slowly, with the small reverent motion of a woman doing a small closing liturgy.

Tiana wrote.

She wrote, on the current working page of the active list, in her careful block letters:

November 25, 2027. Thanksgiving. Yvonne presided. Ten at the table. One empty chair honored. Tamika Wells texted: forty-two letters finished, the box is empty. Ifeanyi in secondary school, still in remission, confirmed by Folake. Ola Pruitt has decided to come for Mother's Day weekend in May. Curtis first Thanksgiving at the table, sixth-generation in the line. Naomi slept on Sheryl's lap. The second year after Mama Tate.

She underlined Tamika Wells finished.

She closed the book.

She looked at her mother.

"Mom."

"Yes, baby."

"That was the full Thanksgiving."

"It was."

"The chair."

"Yes, baby."

"I am glad you set the plate."

"I needed it, baby. I needed it for me. You didn't need it the same way. You had Grandma with you at the reading this morning. I needed the plate. The plate was how I had her at the table."

"Yes, Mom."

Carl, in his wooden chair, said: "Babies."

"Yes, Carl," they said.

"Mama would have been — Mama would have been proud of today."

"Yes, Carl," Yvonne said.

"I want to say one thing. Then I am going to bed. I have been quiet all day. I want to say this one thing."

"Say it, Carl."

"Mama told me last December the hardest Thanksgiving would be the second one. She said the first one, shock carries everybody. The second one tells you whether the family can keep the new shape. She told me to help Yvonne cook it and not let her off. I have been carrying that sentence ever since. Yvonne cooked today. That is what I wanted to say."

The room was quiet.

Yvonne said: "Carl."

"Yes, Yvonne."

"You never told me Mama told you that."

"I did not want to tell you in the planning. I wanted to tell you after. Tonight is after. I am telling you now."

"Yes, Carl."

"Mama knew you, baby."

"She did."

Yvonne got up. She walked across to Carl. She bent and kissed the top of his head. She put her hand on his cheek. She said: "Carl Brooks. You have been the right man at the door for thirty years."

"I have been trying, Yvonne."

"You have been doing it, not trying."

"Yes, Yvonne."

Tiana drove home at nine-forty.

She drove slowly. The November night was cold. Her apartment, when she got in, was quiet.

She sat at her kitchen table with a small cup of peppermint tea. The composition book was in her bag. She took it out. She opened it to Tamika's back-page entry.

She wrote, beneath the existing notes:

November 25, 2027. Text received from Tamika at 2:40 PM. "Finished the letters last week. Forty-two letters. The box is empty. Happy Thanksgiving. Tell Yvonne her mother reached me through her mother. Tamika." Keeping through the full reading complete. Receipt: she is through.

She underlined through.

She closed the book.

She set her hand on it.

She said, to her own kitchen, to the cloud, to the Lord: Thank You. Thank You for Mama Tate's threshold. Thank You for Mom at the head. Thank You for Carl keeping the sentence. Thank You for Tamika finishing. Thank You for all of it. Amen.

She went to bed.

In the small brick house on Park Avenue, Yvonne was in her mother's bedroom with the small wooden box on the dresser open, taking out a small folded photograph she had not, since the funeral, looked at. The photograph was of her mother and father at Thanksgiving in nineteen seventy-one, at this same table, when Yvonne had been three. Yvonne had been, in the photograph, on her mother's lap in the small yellow dress Mama had made her.

Yvonne sat on the bed.

She looked at the photograph.

She said, quietly, to her mother: Mama. I did it. I cooked. The Lord was with me all day. Carl told me about the sentence. I understood why you cooked on every Thanksgiving you ever had. The cooking is the keeping of the table. I know now. I am going to be cooking for the next forty years. I am going to be thinking of you every year. Tell Daddy I did it.

She put the photograph back. She closed the box.

She went to bed beside Carl, who was — quietly — already asleep, the way Carl always was, like a man who had done his day's work.

In Whitehaven, Sheryl had put Naomi to bed at seven-thirty. Naomi had woken briefly to take off her brown dress and put on her pajamas with the moons. She had asked, in the small five-year-old voice that had not yet fully returned from the nap: Grandma. Will we go to Park Avenue next Thanksgiving. Sheryl had said: Every year, baby. Every year. Naomi had nodded. She had gone to sleep with the small handkerchief on her pillow.

In East Memphis, Marcus was in his Getwell Road apartment with the small plate of leftovers Yvonne had packed for him and the small marbled composition book he had been keeping since July on his kitchen table. He wrote, at ten-oh-four, a small entry: November 25, 2027. Thanksgiving at Mom's. Mother Tate's empty chair. Mom presided. Curtis at the table. Naomi in the brown dress. The keeping continues.

In Orange Mound, two blocks east, Curtis was at his grandmother's kitchen table with the small new composition book and the four names he had added to it over the week of his visit. He added, tonight, a fifth: November 25, 2027. Yvonne Brooks. Matriarch of my Mother Tate's house. She received me at her table today as family. I underline her because she is the new matriarch and the keeping goes through her.

He underlined Yvonne.

In Lagos, Folake was asleep. In Oakland, Tamika was sitting at her kitchen table with Diane, with the small empty box that had held her mother's forty-two letters. She had, since Wednesday, been reading her own handwriting in the margins of some of the earliest letters, because she had, over the ten months, begun writing small responses in the margins as she read. She had, Diane had noticed, been quieter since Wednesday. The quieter was, Diane had said over dinner, not a bad quieter.

Tamika had said: It is the quieter of finishing.

Diane had said: I know, baby.

The second Thanksgiving had ended. The threshold had been crossed. Yvonne had presided. Ten had been at the table. The plate at the empty chair had been honored and then taken and washed.

The long evening, now almost eleven months past its keeper, was in its second full year.

The night, in Memphis, was cold. The pecan tree was bare. The small light over the sink in the kitchen at Park Avenue burned on.

Tomorrow would be Friday. The reading would happen again at four.