A Small Town Thanksgiving

by Marie Ferrarella

  Except for when she was too briefly married to Danny, Sam couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat down to a table for the holiday that wasn’t set up directly before the portable television set.

  Even her marriage to Danny seemed like it had happened in a different lifetime now. Or maybe it had all just taken place in a dream she’d invented.

  But today wasn’t for negative thoughts, Sam told herself. Today was for celebrating a special holiday with a special family. That was all that mattered. Banishing any and all thoughts that weren’t directly connected to the side dishes and desserts she was planning to prepare, Sam threw herself into the work that was right in front of her.

  * * *

  “THIS, THIS IS TRULY beautiful, Samantha,” Miguel pronounced, walking into the dining room as he led the rest of his family into the festively decorated room. Armed with colorful decorations she had created out of streamers and crepe paper late last night in her room, Sam had transformed the masculine-looking room into a feast for the eyes. “You have worked too hard. And I feel guilty,” the patriarch confessed, raising his voice to be heard above the low-level din that pervaded the first and possibly the second floor of his house. He took his place at the head of the table while his offspring and their other halves seated themselves around the long table. “You are a guest, Samantha, you were not supposed to be working in the hot kitchen, preparing our meals.”

  “No, that is what he pays me for,” Rosa interjected as she walked in carrying a large bowl of baked yams and apples, topped off with a layer of cinnamon sugar.

  “I pay you for your winning personality, Rosa. The food is just a bonus,” Miguel told the woman who had worked for him ever since he’d brought his young bride here, all those years ago.

  The housekeeper made a dismissive noise as she went back into the kitchen. Sam looked after the woman, debating, then rose to her feet, as well.

  “You are leaving?” Miguel asked, surprised. “Are you not staying for the meal?”

  “Yes, of course,” she assured him. “But Rosa needs help,” she said, about to make her way back to the kitchen to bring in the various other side dishes made to complement the turkey.

  Miguel placed his hand over hers, holding her in place. “And she will have it. Miguel, Gabriel, Raphael, go, help the poor woman,” he instructed. “And you, you sit here and rest, along with all the other lovely ladies in my family.” He said it with a smile, but Sam had a feeling that he was not about to take no for an answer. So she sat down and pretended that the phrase, “my family” included her, as well. At least for today.

  Meanwhile the three sons he had singled out dutifully rose and went to the kitchen. The moment they did, everyone in the dining room could hear the housekeeper attempting to banish them back to the dining room as she ordered, “Get out from under my feet, please!”

  Sam could almost hear the woman’s clenched teeth.

  A moment later, Gabe and Rafe were back, empty-handed, with semi-sheepish expressions on their faces as they passed their father.

  “You know what Rosa’s like, Dad,” Rafe told his father.

  Only Mike walked in carrying something and since it was the turkey and too unwieldy for the five-foot-tall housekeeper to manage by herself, Sam understood why Rosa would have relented in this case.

  Besides, she was beginning to realize that Mike wasn’t like his brothers. He didn’t budge if he didn’t want to and no amount of coercion could make him. She rather liked that about him.

  Mike placed the large, golden roasted bird before his father.

  “Dad,” he declared, gesturing toward the platter as he backed away, “the next step is yours.”

  “And here I thought that it was yours,” Miguel said to his oldest with an unfathomable smile playing on his lips.

  Mike said nothing, sensing that they were no longer talking about the turkey.

  “The writer made the stuffing,” Rosa informed Miguel as she came in from the kitchen with a huge bowl of stuffing. “She followed words on a piece of paper she carried in her pocket,” the woman added by way of a disclaimer.

  “It tastes great,” Angel told her father-in-law. “I sampled it.”

  “Samantha?” he asked, turning toward her. “How much did you cook today?”

  “Just a few things,” she said, shrugging off any undue credit. “Rosa and Angel had so much to do, I thought I should pitch in and help,” Sam told him.

  “Besides the stuffing with all those little meats in them,” Rosa said, pointing things out on the table as they were being set down. “She also made cakes of tea for Russians.”

  Mike looked at the woman sitting next to him, clearly confused—as were most of the others at the table. “You made what?”

  “Russian Tea Cakes,” Sam explained, trying not to laugh at the way Rosa had described them. “You walked in when I was making them.”

  “Oh, when you were rolling in flour,” Mike recalled, nodding.

  “What?” Alma asked, leaning forward a little to look at her face.

  Alma was sitting on Sam’s other side. The baby she was carrying was so large it didn’t allow her to sit as close to the table as she would have wanted.

  “Long story. You had to be there,” Mike told her, and he was not about to elaborate at this time.

  “Obviously,” Cash, Alma’s husband, laughed, adding his two cents in.

  “It’s a dessert,” Sam explained to anyone who might have been curious. She looked at Alma. “It’s really very light.” She didn’t add that she had made them one year for Christmas as a Christmas present for her mother, since there was very little money to be had for things like presents.

  “Very light,” Ray repeated. “To balance out Rosa’s very heavy apple pie.” When the housekeeper began to say something, Ray laughed, then jumped to his feet to hug the woman who had partially raised him, pressing a kiss to her cheek. It was how he always disarmed her. “You know I love you, Rosa.”

  “You sit down and behave yourself if you want to show me how much you love me,” the woman ordered, pretending to scowl at him.

  “Same old Rosa, all bark, no bite.” Gabe laughed, shaking his head.

  The look the older woman gave him had Gabe holding up his hands in complete surrender just as Mike had done earlier that day.

  “If you are all finished, I would like to begin before all this is cold,” Miguel said, calling for silence. The next moment, the din disappeared as if it had never been there.

  Satisfied, the head of the Rodriguez family began. “Please, join hands and close your eyes,” he instructed. When they did and he had taken Sam’s hand in his right and Gabe’s wife’s hand in his left, in a clear, reverent voice, Miguel addressed his departed wife. “Another year has passed without you. I hope you are proud of these children you and I brought into the world. They miss you. But no one misses you as much as I do. Watch over them and me, so we can remain safe until such a time as the good Lord is ready to reunite us.

  “God,” he continued, “we thank you for all our good fortune. And thank you for watching over my children and blessing them with good people to love them,” Miguel concluded.

  As he did so, he glanced toward his oldest son before turning his attention to the turkey that was waiting in front of him.

  “Let the slicing begin,” Ray quipped as his father rose to his feet, picking up his carving knife and fork.

  Sam could have sworn she felt her mouth watering as she watched the knife slide into turkey.

  * * *

  THE CELEBRATION FELT as if it went on forever—and yet it all but whirled by. Sam wouldn’t have complained if it continued for a few hours more.

  But everything, she knew, good or bad, had to eventually come to an end.

  She shouldn’t be greedy, she told herself. Instead, she
should be grateful for this glimpse into what it was like to spend a holiday with a warm, loving family who might have been a tad too loud for some people, but every decibel of whose noisiness just throbbed of love as far as she was concerned.

  The best thing about it was that for a little while, Sam knew she could actually say she was part of it. She’d been included in the conversations and in the preparation, and her efforts in decorating the dining room had been greatly appreciated and admired. Even a couple of Miguel’s sons had commented on it.

  Alma had expressed surprise that her father had done such festive decorations. When it was pointed out that the whole idea had been Sam’s doing, Alma nodded and said, “I should have realized that it was her. The rest of you don’t have a single artistic bone in your bodies,” she said to her father and brothers.

  As for Sam, after the meal, since she was forbidden even to rinse out so much as one glass, she found herself getting to know some of Mike’s sisters-in-law and his nieces and nephews, despite the fact that the latter group consisted of very young children.

  Talking to the children only brought home how much she loved children and how much she had hoped, back when she had been married to Danny, that she would become a mother.

  But, just like with married life, it just wasn’t meant to be for her, she thought, trying very hard to be philosophical and accepting about it. There was no point in being angry or upset about the absence of motherhood. Anger never resolved any situation.

  All she could do—all anyone could do—was savor all the contact that came her way and be grateful that she at least had that—for however long she did.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “So, how’s the book coming?” Mike asked.

  Sam slanted a glance at him. The question seemed to come out of nowhere as they stood in front of the ranch house, watching Alma struggle to seat herself comfortably—or as comfortably as she could—in the passenger side of Cash’s gray sedan.

  Cash, meanwhile, was hovering over her, ready to help in any way he could and appearing helplessly clueless as to what that could possibly be.

  “It’s going well,” Sam replied evasively.

  She didn’t want to talk about the book she was putting together for Mike’s father. Didn’t want to talk about the fact that she had it almost all worked out because that meant that her days here were numbered.

  She blocked it all from her mind. This was a day for enjoying families, even if they were borrowed, as it was in this case. Tomorrow would be time enough to focus on the solitary life that was waiting for her once she finally put this project to bed.

  Even so, she felt a small, icy shiver shimmy down her back.

  Wanting to change the subject, she commented on Alma’s expression. “Your poor sister looks so grossly uncomfortable.”

  Mike laughed shortly. “That’s probably because she is,” he guessed. “Alma’s problem was always trying to keep the weight on, not off.” He remembered being surprised as a kid at what a strong punch his sister had since she had the dimensions and body mass of a stick. “She’s never been this heavy before and even though I know she already loves the baby, she really hates being pregnant. I think she’s literally counting the minutes until this baby arrives,” he told her.

  Instead of getting into the car once he finally got his wife seated and buckled up, Cash crossed back to where they were standing.

  “Forget something?” Mike asked his brother-in-law, although he couldn’t think of anything they had left behind.

  “Not me, but Alma wanted me to ask you to write down the recipe for those white cakey things you made,” Cash told the woman standing beside Mike. “She really liked them.”

  Sam grinned. He couldn’t have said anything better to her if he’d tried.

  “Sure, no problem. I can drop the recipe off at the sheriff’s office tomorrow,” she told Alma’s husband. If it wasn’t so late, she would have gone in search of paper and pen and jotted the recipe down right now.

  “You getting any rest?” Mike asked Cash. His brother-in-law appeared exceedingly frazzled and worn around the edges to him, like someone sitting on a bomb and waiting for it to detonate.

  Cash shrugged, apparently not bothering to deny the obvious. “Yeah, some,” he mumbled.

  “Get more,” Mike told him firmly. “Because once that baby gets here, you can forget about resting for the next nine months to a year. Maybe longer.”

  Sam looked at him in surprise. Mike spoke with such authority, as if he knew exactly what to expect. A question suddenly materialized.

  “You have kids?” she asked.

  It never occurred to her that he might have been married at one point and that he was a father. No one had ever mentioned that, but then, it was his business and although this was a very loving family, she noticed they made a point of not invading each other’s spaces.

  “No, I have siblings,” Mike countered. “And I remember when each one of them was born. It was the same with all five of them. Lots of crying, lots of noise, lots of diapers. Especially with the twins, Gabe and Rafe. And as I remember, there was no sleep to speak of. I think my parents ran on batteries for months. So rest up now, Cash. Memories of sleep are about all you’re going to have soon.”

  “Cash?” Alma called, rolling down the window on the passenger side. “Is my brother trying to scare you?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Just trying to get him prepared, Alma,” Mike called back.

  Cash squared his shoulders as he began to head back to his vehicle. “Guess it’s too late to change our minds,” he assumed.

  “Not that you want to,” Alma told him. “Right?” she added uncertainly.

  “Nope,” Cash told her as he got in behind the steering wheel.

  “Well, pregnancy hasn’t changed Alma any,” Mike observed, watching his brother-in-law’s car as it pulled away from the house and slowly disappeared down the road back to town. “She’s still telling everyone what to think.”

  “Something you’d never do,” Sam said, doing her best to keep a straight face.

  That was the last of them. His brothers and their wives were all on their way home, each couple bundled off with enough leftovers to recreate another Thanksgiving dinner. Ray had already left for what he termed “a late date” and Miguel had excused himself just a little while ago and gone to bed.

  Even Rosa, tired out by her long day, had retreated to her living quarters.

  That had left the two of them to bid everyone else goodbye.

  It was the perfect end to a perfect day, Sam couldn’t help thinking as they turned around to go back into the house.

  “By ‘well,’” Mike said, picking up the thread of the conversation he’d begun earlier, “do you mean that you’re able to read all the entries in the journals, or that you’re almost finished putting it all in chronological order, or...?”

  “Why? Are you that anxious to see me go?”

  Under normal circumstances, he would have given Sam a flippant answer, one that by no means allowed her to suspect what he was thinking or how he felt about the situation.

  But it was the tail end of a very long day that had turned out rather special when he reexamined it. Watching his siblings—Ray notwithstanding—Mike came to the very obvious conclusion that he was missing something. Something that in years past he would have just dismissed—or accepted.

  But today, he found himself envying his siblings. Found himself wanting what they all had: someone to love who loved them in return. Although he’d gone out on occasion, he’d never met that “someone,” that special person who made everything else so worthwhile.

  And somewhere during the course of the day and evening that followed, amid the eating, the talking and the laughter, it suddenly occurred to Mike that he was blindly overlooking what was right in front
of him.

  That “someone” who completed him.

  It was that feeling, that realization, that had him saying what he did in response to Sam’s question. “No, I’m not. I’m not anxious at all to see you leave,” he told her, his voice low and quietly sweeping along her upturned face.

  His eyes holding hers, he lightly buried his fingers in her hair, cupped the back of her head and ever so gently tilted it up.

  Bringing her face closer to his.

  Sam could almost hear her heart pounding as everything around her seemed to stand still and hold its breath.

  She waited.

  Waited for that magical moment of contact.

  And prayed that she wasn’t waiting in vain.

  She wasn’t.

  The next moment, his lips touched hers and all the emotions that she had kept bundled up inside of her, ready to bury, suddenly erupted inside of her. The next thing she knew, she wasn’t just savoring Mike’s kiss, she was kissing him back.

  Hard.

  With feeling.

  Without realizing just how it happened, she found that her arms wove themselves around the back of his neck and her body leaned into his as one kiss fed into another. And then another after that, each one even more impassioned than the one that had come before.

  Mike slipped his hand from the back of her head, dropped it down to her back as he pulled her into him, never breaking contact. Increasing the intensity of that contact until it would have taken an act of God to pull them apart.

  She felt his body harden against hers. Felt her passion galvanizing within her.

  Her head was spinning wildly as Sam fought the very strong desire to pull Mike’s clothes away from his body, to shed her own so that there were no artificial barriers between them.

  She knew that she should have been horrified that she was having these feelings, knew that she was acting completely out of character. Never in a hundred years would she have thought that she could be possessed by feelings this strong, by needs this overwhelming. Until this moment, she had always prided herself on her strength, on her control, born of her will to survive, never to be a victim of circumstances.