And yes, that is obviously a lie. I feel bitter and resentful, and, as a nice bonus, I feel guilty for feeling that way because it reminds me that I did have selfish motives for initiating this whole parenthood thing, which is to say that I thought I would no longer have to spend Thanksgiving either alone or in the company of my father, which amounts to much the same thing and nearly always involves some sort of Hungry Man turkey dinner, which is so pathetic it makes me cringe.
So there you are. Rosalind is spending an important holiday with someone who has been important to her for her entire life, and this not only reminds me that I expected Rosalind to fill a hole in my life, but also that I have a long way to go before I get to the place where we have a relationship as real as the one she has with Karen. Or perhaps that will never happen. Perhaps she will leave for college—unlikely with her current grades, but let’s assume she pulls it together at some point—and just never look back, and think occasionally of the strange four years she spent with that pathetic man trying to be her father.
I am sorry to be indulging in a pretty serious pity party—indeed, I think this might qualify as a pity bender—but I am trying my best to mask my disappointment in front of Rosalind, as I don’t want to be imposing my needs on her when she has all she can do to keep herself afloat at this juncture.
I will end with some positive news, which is that I got a call from her English teacher, who praised at length her intelligence and insight and said that she wrote a fantastic essay on To Kill a Mockingbird. I was delighted to hear that it was fantastic, but I was ecstatic to hear that she had actually bothered to write an essay at all. So perhaps she is getting better.
Now if only I could do the same.
—Sean
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Thanksgiving
Hello there. Well Rosalind informs me that she will be joining you for Thanksgiving. I had a brainstorm, which might be a bad idea, but I did think I might run it by you. Perhaps the three of us could spend the holiday together.
I recognize that you and I are not exactly, or even inexactly, friends, and indeed would probably never speak but for Rosalind, but we do, as we’ve discussed, both care for her, and so I suppose in some expansive definition that makes us like a family.
(Indeed, if you and I could both get drunk and start yelling vulgar epithets at each other, it would be much like an actual family Thanksgiving at Grandmother Cassidy’s house that I remember all too keenly.)
In any case, I appreciate that Sandy and Eva’s absence will be especially glaring during this holiday season, and I certainly understand if you feel that the two of you need some time alone, but please consider my offer.
Thanks,
Sean
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Thanksgiving
Sean—
Even though I am pretty sure I never met your grandmother, I am also sure I went to the exact same Thanksgiving dinner when I was young. Was yours in Cincinnati? Did Uncle Jack throw a punch at Uncle Rob?
In any case, I do appreciate what you are saying about how we are stuck with each other. (You put it more nicely than that, but I obviously don’t have your talent for euphemism.) I do think, however, that it’s important for Rosalind and me to be together and share our sadness this Thanksgiving. Thanks for your understanding.
—Karen
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Loser part 2
So immediately after sending you the pity bender e-mail, I sent one to Karen, pathetically begging her to allow me to share their Thanksgiving dinner, because apparently I do not have even a shred of dignity.
And she turned me down, making me feel like even more of a loser. I telephoned every homeless shelter in town and found that they all have full staffs of volunteers for Thanksgiving, so I cannot even take that route to dodge the reality of my solitary Thanksgiving.
I suppose I could go to Philadelphia, but I am not quite emotionally prepared to face that alone. I am trying, instead, to look at this as an opportunity to rest up and regroup. That is to say, Rosalind will be Karen’s responsibility for the night, so I will be able to exhale, relax, and watch football without fear of John Madden bringing up the sensitive subject of turduckens.
So there you have it. Did I mention that I will be dining on Tofurky? I suppose I could still snag the bachelor-size Butterball, but I feel like I’ve already spent the money on the complete Tofurky dinner, so I may as well enjoy, or at least consume it.
I hope you have a nice relaxing vacation and get lots of papers corrected … oh, wait, never mind.
—Sean
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Loser part 2
Ah, the old gym teacher joke. Feelin’ like a loser, so make fun of the gym teacher. (You know I am actually making my students this year do a WRITTEN fitness evaluation, with lots of data from various activities they’re doing over the course of the semester.) Ah, you sucked me in, you bastard.
Anyway, the bottom line is that Thanksgiving is just a day, and you are going to have lots of days with her, and you’ll be able to eat all the gross vegetarian food you want, and I do think that this time is going to be important to her, and she won’t look at you like some foster home she used to live in.
But you know that, anyway. So enjoy the football, and I am glad to hear you’re taking a break, because you need it. You also need a date, my friend. It’s been a while since you hit the magical six-month barrier with, what the hell was her name? Oh, right, right, Jan, trying to date the entire Brady Bunch, pathetic sitcom fixation, right right.
Anyway, maybe you should start trolling for Cindys.
Activate your online personal again.
Just an idea.
Well, we are off. Just in case you are feeling jealous of my wonderful family Thanksgiving, think about a nine-hour drive, then think about Allie’s horrible sister, no, not the hot one, stop asking me about her, the hatchet-faced one who will give me her annual lecture on the brutality of football and gender roles, blah blah blah while you get to watch the Lions lose in peace. I think I would even eat Tofurky for that pleasure.
—Dave
Dear Fluffy:
Well, Sean was pretty cool about the Thanksgiving thing, but you could tell he was disappointed even though he was trying really hard not to act disappointed, and I actually did feel kind of bad which then I got mad about. I actually called Lisa who is always giving me cards with her number like call me anytime, but anyway I actually did it this time and I said I was just feeling bad and she said that I need to take care of myself and that means not doing self-destructive stuff but also maybe not caring how somebody else feels for a while.
Done.
Which is lucky because I am just disappearing from lunch these days. I think Sasha kind of blamed me for her getting in trouble even though it wasn’t my idea to go to that party or even my parent who caught us, though I guess it was my parent or donor guy whatever who actually stalked us to the party, so I guess I can give her that one, but anyway I feel like she has been kind of cold lately and that is actually okay because I don’t know if we have anything in common except that we both liked this kid I used to be in the 8th grade. Who is probably gone forever. So mostly I just sit there and don’t say much and I am thinking about if I can eat with Kate without the other bitches or maybe that Chris kid who I see and who was I guess along with Kate and Sasha and Kristen somebody who went out of his way to be nice to me, but he is always with his whole table full of guys and no way am I going to walk over there and have all them doing that goofy laughing thing all teasing him and whatever. Plus anyway the girls that hang out with them all tend to board too and wear that stupid skateboard uniform so maybe Abercrombie kids like me aren’t welcome, even ones like me wh
o are kind of like metal or at least mad and sad on the inside and not all pretty and windswept like those people in the pictures in the store. Plus also I suppose a guy who is talking nice to a younger girl who is drinking at a party and let’s face it not all that good looking might not just be a nice guy, or that’s what Sean says which I guess is probably true from what you hear.
Anyway, Kate said I was lucky to have two people fighting over me for Thanksgiving because she hates Thanksgiving or pretty much any time she has to spend with her mom and stepdad and their kids they have together who according to her they obviously like better than her.
I guess. Lucky is not really a word I would use to describe myself these days. But I guess I am lucky that I found a friend and I am lucky to have a cool painting in my room which Sean was like, hey where did that come from, I like it, and I was like my friend did it, and he was like, trying to be all casual, oh, which friend is that, and I got mad and told him that my friends were my business, which I guess is dumb because I could have just said Kate, but you know that would mean like a million more questions where it would probably come out that I violated the terms of my probation or whatever and then I really would never get ungrounded. Aired? Atmosphered? There ought to be a better word.
Well, happy Turkey Day Fluffy, or whatever, black bean day or whatever we vegetarians say, I mean I will take you along to Karen’s mostly because I don’t trust Sean not to read you when I’m gone, but I don’t think I will be doing much writing. Mostly I will be eating and I hope laughing but let’s be honest here there are tears on tap for this holiday and that is going to suck ass.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Turduckens, Tofurky
Well, I bought myself a pie, and before I go for my second slice, I thought I would take a break and tell you about my Thanksgiving.
I watched both the Lions and the Cowboys lose, and I don’t know what it says about me that I still enjoy it whenever Parcells loses. Madden did, in fact, go on and on about the Turducken, as he does every Thanksgiving, and so I was glad that Rosalind was not here for that little halftime featurette, though she probably would have been holed up in her room. Which, don’t worry, I don’t interpret as an alarming sign, as everyone tells me that every teenager does that.
In any case, I was feeling somewhat guilty about the fact that I hadn’t even called Dad in, oh, I don’t know, eight months or something, so I called him, and he did not actually appear to be intoxicated, and I informed him that he has a granddaughter, and I was surprised that he sounded so enthusiastic about the prospect. That is to say, he sounded genuinely happy and said that he wanted to meet her. I made vague, easily cancellable promises about how I would check with Rosalind about her schedule and call him. (I am sure she has a great deal of sulking scheduled, and I don’t know if that is a site-specific activity or if she could take it on the road.)
Hmm—that sounds particularly bitter toward both of my closest relatives. Ah, well, I suppose a Thanksgiving alone will do that to you. Although I will say that I was once again surprised by the quality of the Tofurky meal. The stuffing was quite tasty. It’s certainly not turkey, but it was salty and I ate far too much, so that is about all I ask from a Thanksgiving meal.
Okay. To be fully honest, I am angry at Rosalind for leaving, I am angry at myself for needing so much from a child, I am angry at Karen because she is incredibly annoying and also transparently needy, which I suppose I hate in her because it reminds me of me. Did I mention the fact that I am angry at Dad for not giving me the kind of upbringing that would make me want to call him more than twice a year? And, of course, that I am angry with myself, because as I spoke to him and he was clear and coherent and nice and slightly sad, I recognized that maybe I need to forgive him, which I don’t want to do.
Yes, I do need a date. Badly. I am firing up the online personal as soon as I finish talking to you. And perhaps I will skip the second piece of pie. Of course, the logistics of who would watch Rosalind kind of elude me—would I ask Karen and thus go into favor debt with someone I don’t like? Would I leave her alone and thus guarantee some sort of teen bacchanal here in my own home? Well, I suppose I really should procure the date first and work out the logistics later. I plan to give prominent mention to my single fatherhood, hoping that will offset the lawyer-who-doesn’t-actually-make-a-lot-of-money factor, which has been such a stumbling block in the past. (I know, Dr. Phil, it’s about the kind of women I date. You actually don’t have to tell me that again, though I suppose if I do end up dating Marcia version 6.0, you will have earned the right to tell me, oh, I don’t know … 3 more times.)
I hope you got to enjoy Parcells losing (did you see him screaming at the wide receiver? I actually thought that vein in his head might explode, thus ruining countless Thanksgiving appetites throughout the country) without too much interference from your hatchet-faced sister-in-law. Also, please tell me something about the hot one besides that she is too young for me and lives in California. Humor me.
—Sean
Dear Fluffy,
It looks like I lied because I am here on Karen’s couch and it is one a.m. and I wanted to talk to you because this Thanksgiving did actually suck ass but not exactly in the way I thought it would.
It started out okay, we were doing a little bit of cooking and Karen was like, oh, I hear you’re getting into cooking these days, and I was kind of like well, where did you hear that, and she got all embarrassed and said, oh, well, Sean told me, and I was about to get mad about them talking about me behind my back, but she beat me to it, all, “I’ve been so worried about you, and even though I don’t really like him, so has Sean, and we were just exchanging a few e-mails about what was going on with you,” and I was pissed off and just didn’t say anything. I don’t even know why I was so mad because it’s not like I’ve been lying to either of them unless being like I’ll be in my room and then sneaking out is a lie, which I guess it is but I don’t think it counts because I got caught.
I guess I just thought being here would be a day off from all that shit. And then later she tries with the thing about do I have any special friends or whatever the stupid boyfriend/girlfriend question is and since she is a lesbian herself I can’t use the heterosexist thing, and I don’t even know what to say. I wanted to tell her about Kate, I wanted to tell her about Jen, about everything, about the diner, but then I knew she’d run back and rat me out to Sean. I was like, I don’t know, I have some friends, I don’t know if any of them are special or whatever, and she was like well, you don’t have to decide that now anyway because you’re supposed to be confused when you’re fourteen, and I kind of wondered if she’d been talking to Lisa too, but I guess that’s illegal or something.
Anyway it was wicked embarrassing and gross, and I really thought there was a big teen sex talk coming which I probably would have had to like die if that happened, just crawl right into the oven next to the cranberry—wild rice casserole and die of embarrassment, especially because you just know Karen would be all vagina power which is gross but cool I guess but I just don’t really think I could have handled it just then or maybe ever from her.
So then dinner was fine, but you know Karen had like two glasses of wine and even offered me one which I took and felt okay, I mean it was different from sneaking Zima in some kid’s basement or something, it was like, oh, I am a responsible grown-up now, which I thought was pretty good because you know Sean would be all I can’t trust you with booze and never give me any wine with dinner even though I haven’t ever seen him drink, but whatever.
But maybe Karen should take Sean’s advice about the booze because she definitely had the weepy drunk thing going and she kind of lost her shit and I am there comforting her, like I’m this kid telling this grown-up it’s going to be okay, there there, whatever, and then she starts crying about how unfair this is to me and she shouldn’t be doing it, and I was like yeah, you got that right, but I d
idn’t actually say that, I was just like well, whatever, and then she went to bed and here I am eating pie and writing to Fluffy and I swear to God I didn’t even think about it until now that she is asleep with her weepy self, but I really miss them a lot tonight. I mean, even Karen losing her shit helped me not think about how this Thanksgiving is not like last Thanksgiving, and how, like, I don’t actually have much to be thankful for and thankful to who, anyway, thanks God for killing my real parents and ruining my life, thanks a bundle, it’s just like the Indians at Thanksgiving all thanks Great Spirit for bringing us these people who are going to kill us all. Fuck it.
The thing I hate is that I really felt like I was doing better, and now I feel like I’m doing worse, and I don’t want to go to sleep and lie here with my brain going on and on about Mom and Mommy and I could watch one of Karen’s videos but they are all stuff we all watched together which what the fuck was she thinking, well, I don’t know. I want to go home, and I mean not Sean’s house but my home my real home with the real family in it, except now there’s some yuppie couple there with I swear to God some Porsche SUV which Mommy would have slashed the tires if anybody ever drove up to our house in something like that.
Now I am actually kind of looking forward to school because at least there I can not think about all these fucking grown-ups who are supposedly here to help me.
IM from Redchordfan03
Redchordfan03: RU THERE
Rosalind90: HEY KATE HOW WAS TURKEY DAY?
Redchordfan03: SUCKED BUT WHATS NEW
Redchordfan03: BUT SAW GRAMMA WHO LIKES ME BEST & HATES HANSEL&GRETEL STEPKIDS SO THAT WAS GOOD
Rosalind90: THAT’S COOL. SAW MY AUNT AND SHES STILL A MESS ABOUT MY MOMS
Redchordfan03: 2BAD
Rosalind90: IT KINDA SUCKED BUT AT LEAST I COULDN’T GET SAD B/C SHE BEAT ME 2 IT.
Redchordfan03: I HATE HOLIDAYS
Rosalind90: ME 2
Redchordfan03: BUT THERES AN ALL AGES SHOW AT SOME VFW HALL OR SOMETHING IN FITCHBURG 2MORROW. 5 BANDS 10 BUCKS. WANNA GO?
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