A Thanksgiving Day Holiday Story

 Holiday Bliss
Part 1

by Maren
Copyright ©2006

Note: This is not a complete story. For the entire story, please join our website here.

“Ryan!”  Mrs. Debra Billings came out of the passenger unloading zone of the Eugene Airport with her arms thrown open wide.  “Oh, my baby!”

Her 'baby’ winced first, but then smiled indulgently down at her.  At 6’3”, he towered a good eight inches over Kasey’s head, and she was at least half a foot again taller than her husband’s diminutive mother. 

His diminutive, irritating, insulting, bulldog of a mother.

As her husband reached out his arm to envelop his mother in a hug, Kasey sized up her arch-nemesis.  Debra didn’t look like the spawn of Satan, but looks, as Kasey had learned over the years, really could be deceiving.

“Oh my poor baby!” Debra crowed, clasping his face in her wrinkled hands.  “Have you been eating?”

Three square meals a day, Kasey thought, but she locked her lips together, not trusting herself to say anything kind.

“You’re so pale,” Debra continued.  She reached up to feel his forehead for fever while Kasey eyed his brown skin, still lightly tanned from working outdoors all summer long.  Apparently, Ryan’s mother was half-blind, because she only tsked.  “No, you don’t look good at all.  Is she using those recipes I sent her?  She can’t be if you still look this terrible!”

Ryan’s smile dimmed.  Catching her by the shoulders, he pulled himself from her embrace.  “Mom,” he warned.  “We talked about this.”

“What?  What did we talk about?  What did I say?”  Debra’s eyes grew wide and wounded.  “I mention a gift, and you get all offended!  Where is she, anyway, that wife of yours?”

Drawing a deep, bracing breath, Kasey then stepped out from behind Ryan’s back to lock eyes with her mother-in-law.

Debra’s cheerful expression faded and her smile became fixed on Kasey.  “Yes,” she said, her voice laden with disappointment.  “That’s the one.”

“Hello, Mom,” Kasey greeted, managing a slight smile.  She even managed to maintain her smile as her mother-in-law swept her from top to toe with the same disappointed stare that she used every year.

“Well,” heaving a heavy sigh, Debra patted her son’s cheek.  “No sense crying over spilled milk.” 

After seven years, comments like that no longer had the power to hurt Kasey.  They did, however, make her mad.  Locking her lips together, Kasey snapped around to put two steps distance between herself and the blue-haired monster she called 'Mom’.  She slid her hands into her back jeans pockets, trying to affect a casual stance while she glared daggers out across the innocent airport.

“Mom,” Ryan said, firmly setting himself between his mother and his wife.  “You promised.”

“What?” Debra asked, wounded all over again. 

She started to shrug, but Ryan stopped her with another, even sharper, “Mom!  I mean it, don’t!  You don’t have to like Kasey, but she is my wife, and I am not going to spend another holiday in a war zone.  Tell me now if you don’t think you can be nice.  I’ll buy you a ticket on the next plane home.”

“All right!”  Closing her eyes, Debra raised her hands in surrender.  “You win.  I’ll be nice.”

“Kasey?”  Ryan called, a note of iron-clad warning in his tone.

“Hey,” she protested, as she swiveled back around, locking gazes with her earthly nemesis.  “I was being civil.  Let’s just get--” oh how the temptation to say, 'the old bat’ made her mouth tremble “--Mom’s luggage and go home.”

Ryan looked from one to the other, and then nodded, tentatively trusting them both to keep their word.  “All right then.  Which way’s the baggage claim?”

“I have such a wonderful surprise for you,” Debra declared, linking her arm with Ryan’s and leading him off down the hall.  “Everything is way too easy these days.  Everything is store bought and shake and bake.  Not like the good old days when food actually had flavor.”

Hands still in her back pockets, Kasey sauntered slowly along behind them, glaring knives in her mother-in-law’s back as she listened to Debra’s reminiscing of days gone by.  And in particular, those by-gone days when she was a little girl--back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and little girls were not only expected to walk five miles to and from school every day, in eight feet of snow, without shoes, but woe be it to she who didn’t kill at least one sabre-toothed grizzly bear with her loose-leaf notebook.

“We raised our own turkeys back then,” Debra said, nudging Ryan up to the conveyor belt to retrieve her first suitcase.  “My mother would always send my brother and I out to kill and pluck it early in the morning, and then all day long--that one, too, dear,” she nudged her son and pointed to another bag. “All day long we would smell that mouth-watering aroma wafting through the house.  It was wonderful.  I do so miss those days.  That one, too.”

“Mom, you’re only going to be here three days,” Ryan laughed, reaching for the third bag.  “You must have packed all the way down to the kitchen sink!”

“No, no,” she shooed at his hands.  “Not that one.  Good heavens, I should hope I’ve got better taste than to travel with a bag like that.”

Kasey winced as the owner of the bag took it out from under Ryan’s hand, and then turned to give Debra a sour look.  Kasey smiled at him sympathetically.  “Sorry,” she told him, as he shouldered past her.  “She’s old, set in her ways, and hasn’t quite figured out yet how to get into heaven.”

If Debra heard her, she pretended not to.  Ryan, however, gave Kasey a very dark look.  Now it was her turn to affect a wounded shrug.  “What?”

“Don’t,” he warned.

That was all he needed to say.  She clamped her lips tightly together and her hands behind her back.  Bottom tingling, she took a slight step back and muffled a sigh of relief when he turned back to the baggage conveyor.

“Which one did you want again?”

“Quick!” Debra pointed frantically down the moving conveyor.  “It’s passed us!  Grab it, Ryan!”

Ryan darted into the crowd, chasing down the illusive bag.  “Which one?”

“The dog carrier!”

Kasey’s jaw dropped when her husband snagged the huge grey plastic crate and lifted it off the belt.  “You brought a dog?!”

Debra turned around.  Without her censuring son at her side, she gave Kasey another head to toe examination.  “Don’t be silly.  I’ve never owned one of those filthy beasts, and I’ve no inclination to start now.”

“Then what...?” Kasey never got to finish her thought.  She didn’t have to.  When Ryan set the carrier on the floor, she realized exactly what was inside when she heard an ear-piece 'Gobble-gobble-gobble!’ from within.  “I don’t believe this.  You brought a turkey?!  A LIVE turkey?!”

“Just like the olden days.”  Debra beamed, although there was a decisively smug glitter to her eyes as she asked, “I’ll help you cook it if you don’t know how.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my cooking,” Kasey seethed.

“Mom,” Ryan groaned.  “Just one.  Just one holiday, one year, where I don’t have to preside over World War Three.”

“Gobble-gobble-gobble!” cried the turkey, and everyone gathered around the conveyor took a big step back to stare.

Kasey threw her hands up in the air, but there was no point in arguing any more.  She just turned around and headed for the car without another word.  Not one.  And she continued not to say another word for the duration of the entire two-hour-long ride home.  Stuffed in the backseat between the car door and two big suitcases, Kasey sat with her knees practically under her chin because her domineering mother-in-law apparently needed lots of leg room to accommodate her bad ankles.  The turkey was in the trunk, where it bellowed its rapid-fire gobbles every time the car hit a pothole in the road.  Or a bump.  Or a crack, a pebble, a sunbeam splashing across the highway, or maybe just because it felt like it every fifteen seconds.

Neither Ryan nor his demon-spawn mother commented on the turkey’s constant need to vocalize, probably because they couldn’t hear it over the radio and their own conversation.  A conversation which did not include Kasey, mostly because whenever Ryan tried to involve her, she turned her head to the window and pretended not to hear him.  If she opened her mouth at this point, she knew, she was likely going to say something--a bunch of somethings even--that Ryan would make sure she regretted in the privacy of their bedroom, with her pants and panties around her ankles, and her bare bottom bucking desperately under his vigorous assault, later that night.

But even as discretely as she thought she’d kept her pouting, when they pulled into the driveway and Debra got out of the car, Ryan turned to pin her with a knowing look.  “Did you not hear us talking to you, or were you ignoring us so you could sulk?”

“I couldn’t hear you,” she lied.  “It was difficult to hear anything over the stupid turkey.”

“Uh huh,” he said, not believing a word of it, but he didn’t push her either.

They got out of the car, and while Kasey struggled to lug the heavy suitcases out of the backseat, Ryan liberated the turkey, carrier and all, from the trunk.  “I’m going to put him in the tool shed.  Kasey, honey, can you...?”

He let the sentence hang, but Kasey knew what he was after.  With a sigh, she picked up the suitcases.  “Right this way, Mom.”

Without bothering to see if Hell’s Angel was following, she trudged up the walkway to the front porch.

“Same room as last time, I suppose,” Debra said while Kasey fished her keys from her pocket to open the door.

“It’s a very nice guest room,” Kasey muttered.

“The bed smells funny.”  Debra wrinkled her nose.  “If the bed smells funny again this year, I want to sleep on the couch.”

Kasey grit her teeth but managed to hang onto her smile.  “Remember, the bed smelled funny because you spilt your liniment on it.”

Debra sniffed and looked away.  “I don’t recall.  And your roses need trimming.”

“I’ll trim my plants when I’m darn good and ready,” Kasey said sweetly, pasting her smile firmly into place.  “And if the accommodations aren’t to your liking again this year, you are more than welcome to sleep outside in the tool shed with the turkey.”  She swung the door open and stepped aside to allow her mother-in-law to pass.  “After you.”

Debra didn’t bother pretending any more.  “You are not at all what I would have wanted for my son.  I don’t like you, and I don’t think I ever have.”

“Back at you, babe,” Kasey returned.

From the back door, they heard Ryan call out, “Are you two getting along?”

“Yes,” they both sang out sweetly, their eyes glaring daggers back and forth. 

“Good!  I’ll get dinner ready.”

Drawing on her fortitude, Kasey picked up her mother-in-law’s suitcases and headed for the stairs.  “Right this way,” she said, trying for a cheerfulness she certainly didn’t feel. 

The heavy bags knocked against the wall twice as she struggled to get them up to the second floor, but Debra followed along behind her, not once offering to help.  In revenge, when Kasey reached the top step, she stepped aside and let her mother-in-law into the guest room ahead of her.  Then she dropped the suitcases in the threshold where Debra would be forced to move them before either closing the door or leaving the room.

“They’d be easier for me to handle if you brought them to the bed.”

“This is a do-it-yourself household,” Kasey told her.  “You want them on the bed?  Lug them there yourself.”

From right directly behind her, Ryan’s soft voice said, “Here, mom.  Let me get that for you.”

Kasey jumped; Debra blossomed in a huge smile.  “Oh, thank you, sweetheart!  Between the arthritis and my bad ankles, I just can’t manage the heavy things anymore.”

“I know,” Ryan soothed, pushing past Kasey to pick up the suitcases.  Hugging herself, Kasey quickly averted her eyes, but not before she saw the dark accusation of his expression.  Naturally!  He would butt into the conversation only when she was being rude.  And yet, he was always conspicuously absent when his mother started issuing her snide, little comments.

She tried not to bristle.  “I thought you were getting dinner ready.”

“You know what they say about children who suddenly play quietly together and how it’s not because they’re playing nicely.  That’s the two of you.”  He glared back at her over his shoulder as he muscled the heavy bags onto Debra’s bed.

Kasey stormed back downstairs in a huff.  His version of getting dinner ready had obviously been to take the ready-bake rolls out of the fridge, but that was it.  That’s fine.  She’d pretty much known she was going to be doing all the cooking again this year anyway.  And since this was the eve of Thanksgiving, nobody would expect dinner to be a fancy affair.  So, fried chicken from a box, ready-bake rolls and store-bought potato salad were what she had on the menu. 

Once the chicken and rolls were in the oven, she spiced up the potato salad--adding pickles, onions, mustard and deviled eggs--all while going over and over in her mind every miserable holiday that she’d ever had to endure with Debra.  Years of being needled and picked at built like a volcano inside her.  According to Debra, nothing she’d ever done was right for Ryan.  Nothing she did could ever be good enough for Mama’s Special Boy.  Kasey couldn’t wait for Debra to go home again.  Only two and a half days left before she picked up her bags and got back on that plane for Tulsa.  Only fifty-four more hours, thirty-six minutes, and twelve seconds left to go.

Eleven...ten...nine...

She heard footsteps coming down the carpeted stairs back in the hall.  Only one set, with strong and sure steps.  Ryan.  Which meant the Wicked Witch of Middle America must still be upstairs, nursing her bad ankles and pretending that the wounds she’d suffered from Kasey’s razor-sharp tongue were mortal ones.

Fifty-four hours, thirty-five minutes and fifty-nine seconds left to go.  Fifty-eight...fifty-seven...

Ryan came into the kitchen, his mouth set in a hard, flat, angry line and his brown eyes flashing.

She glared right back at him.  “Did you get Beelzebub’s doppleganger settled in for the night?”

Ryan’s hand snapped up and he pointed at her.  “You are one word away from a trip out to the shed and a long, serious attitude adjustment.”

“She started it!” Kasey snapped back, bristling.

“I am tired of doing this!” he said.  “Every year we do this; it’s always the same.  Over and over and over again.  All I want is one holiday--One!--where I’m not left to feel like a referee in a boxing ring!”

“Then stop inviting Queen Bitch--” she raised her voice, fully hoping Debra was eavesdropping, and glared at the ceiling, “--to stay with us!”

It was in the next split second that Kasey realized what her biggest problem was.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t that she had an evil mother-in-law.  Nor that she had a husband who spanked.  No, her biggest problem was that she talked too cussed much.  In retrospect, she could even narrow down which of those words had been the 'one word’ too many, which had Ryan slapping first the kitchen table and then gritting his teeth and heading straight for her. 

Kasey backed all the way up to the sink, losing every shred of attitude as she threw up her hands to stop him.  “Wait a minute!  How is this my fault?!”

Rolling up his right sleeve, he didn’t bother to answer but grabbed the wooden spoon--the big one that had absolutely nothing to do with cooking--out of the crock by the stove.

The only reason Kasey didn’t scream was because she knew her mother-in-law was quite possibly lurking at the top of the stairs, her hawk’s ears cocked to listen in.  Kasey did, however, do her darnedest to duck past Ryan, making a mad dash for the living room.  She knew if she could only get the coffee table between them, then she might have half a chance at talking her way out of a well-roasted hiney.

Unfortunately, she never made it to the living room.  Ryan caught her at the stove, and in one smooth jerk, had her yanked over and wrapped around his hip.  Kasey let out one startled shriek, but then bit her lips, clapping both hands over her mouth as that awful spoon went to work. 

Ryan peppered the whole of her backside with rapid-fire pops and smacks.  The spoon hurt like the devil and positively set the seat of her pants on fire, but Kasey refused to make a sound.  She had watery eyes and a runny nose and tooth marks on her lips and her fingers, but she never made a peep.  Not until her husband jerked her upright and, spoon still clasped tightly in his right hand, his eyes blazing, practically daring her to disobey, he said, “Any other smart ass comments you’d like to make?”

Kasey grabbed her aching bottom with both hands, but kept her teeth locked tightly together.  If looks could kill, he’d be a shriveled-up, charred lump of agony on the kitchen linoleum, but sadly Ryan continued to live and breathe.  He slammed the spoon back in the crock. 

“Good,” he snapped and squared off against her again.  He was angry; his shoulders and chest seeming impossibly broad and strong, and he was breathing hard.  “Now you’re going to listen to me.  I hope this time you pay attention because this is the very last time I’m going to say this.  God knows, my mother isn’t the easiest woman to get along with, but she is still my mother, and I love her.  But in all our years together I haven’t had one holiday--not one--that the two of you haven’t ruined with your petty fighting, bickering, and insults.  You promised that this would be my year.  You promised.  Now I expect you to live up to your promise.  Now, if I have to say one more word to you about this, then not only will I send Mom home again, but I swear to God you won’t sit until Christmas.  Now, do you understand me?”

Kasey swallowed hard, clearing the anger from her mouth before she dared open it.  “Yes.”

“Yes, what?” he bit out.

“Yes, sir.”

He gave her one last backwards glare and then marched himself back out of the kitchen.  Kasey heard a tell-tale scramble of footsteps on the second floor as Debra shot back into the guest room when she heard Ryan marching towards the stairs.

“Don’t even bother!” he called up to her, taking the steps two at a time.  “I want to talk to you, too!”

When Kasey heard Debra’s door slam, then open and slam again as Ryan charged in after her anyway, she grabbed that horrible wooden spoon.  Racing to the back door, she flung that spoon out across the lawn as far as her arm would let her.  Then it was her turn to slam doors, and she took full advantage of it, grabbing the seat of her jeans before the last reverberations faded into the walls and windows.  Shoulders slumped; she rubbed her bottom.

Two seconds later, as Ryan gave his mother the same lecture, Kasey sprinted frantically across the back lawn and all but dove headfirst into the rhododendrons in search of that spoon.  As awful as it was, she had it back in the stove-side crock before her husband came tromping back downstairs.

“Did you say something?” he growled, when he came back through the kitchen on his way to the living room.

“No, sir.”  She shook her head for good measure, and then took her hands off her bottom because already she could hear Debra following not far behind him.  Sauntering past the kitchen, when Beezlebub’s eyes met Kasey’s, her mother-in-law smirked.  Kasey turned her back, clamping her mouth shut so tightly that she could practically feel her teeth cracking under the pressure.  Her hands shook, but she only finished making their supper and then set the table.

Barely more than two days left to go.  Only two.  And then Debra would be back on a plane, and she would still be sitting down.  She could suffer anything for two miserable days.

“You definitely aren’t using the recipes I sent you,” Debra said, poking at her potato salad.  “And the chicken is dry.  Isn’t your chicken dry, sweetheart?  How can you eat dry chicken like this?  My recipe is so much better.”

“Mom,” Ryan groaned.

“What?” Debra cried.  “This kitchen is like a tomb.  Don’t you two have conversation at suppertime?  You used to talk to Sandra all the time.”

Ryan buried his head in his hands.  “Mom....!”

Kasey touched the back of his hand as she stood up.  “It’s okay.  Water off a duck’s back.  I’m not going to let it bother me.”

“Where are you going?” he asked, when she picked up her half-eaten plate.

“Someone has to feed and water the turkey.  It may as well be me.”

“If you need help killing it tomorrow morning,” Debra called after her, “I’ll be more than willing to give you some pointers.  You do have a sharp axe, don’t you, dear?”

“All the better to hack you into pieces with,” Kasey muttered under her breath. 

“What?” both Ryan and his mother called after her.

“Nothing.”  She fetched a bowl from the kitchen, and with her half-eaten supper plate in the other hand, she went out to the tool shed.  “Hello, you rotten bird.”

The turkey erupted into gobbles, effectively stopping her tantrum.  Wilting, she headed back out to fill the water bowl from the garden hose.  But when she tried to slip it and the plate of leftovers into the carrier, the turkey made its escape.

“Oh, drat!”  Kasey jumped backwards when a fury of flapping wings and scratching feet flew at her.  She scrambled to shut the tool shed door, but fortunately the fast-moving bird was more interested in hiding itself behind the lawn mower than darting outside.  With tomorrow’s main course still safely contained inside the tool shed, Kasey relaxed a little.  Then she frowned.  “Oh, drat,” she said again.  Now what was she supposed to do?

She ducked down, peering through the darkness, the interior of the tool shed being lit only by what little yard light filtered through the single window.  She could barely make out the white and black feathers of the turkey, cowering in the corner behind the mower’s litter bag.

Outside, she heard Ryan calling to her from the back door.  “Hey honey, everything okay out there?”

“Yes,” she yelled back.  “I’m fine.”  Lowering her voice, she muttered under her breath, “I just let the flipping turkey out, that’s all.”

The turkey warbled and peeked back at her around the side of the litter bag.

Frowning, Kasey tried to stalk it behind the lawnmower.  “Here, turkey, turkey, turkey.”

It poked its head out to look at her, but when she ducked down to grab it, it abandoned the lawnmower and dashed behind the shovels instead, knocking over both the leaf and garden rakes before disappearing behind a stack of boxes in the corner.

Grabbing wildly for it, Kasey tripped and fell.  Her hand landed smack into her plate of potato salad.  “UGH!”

Disgusted, she shock off the worst of the muck and then, for lack of something else to use, wiped off her fingers on her jeans.  Her mounting frustration got the best of her.  Kicking her feet on the floor, she erupted in curses and hit the lawnmower bag.

From right outside the door, she heard Ryan asking, “Honey, are you okay?”

Wilting, Kasey rolled her eyes at herself.  “Don’t come in!  I let the blasted turkey out!”

“Do you want some help?”

“No!” she snapped, harsher than she really meant to.  Stifling a sigh, she gentled her tone.  “No, I’m fine.  Just...just give me a minute, okay?  I’m not so useless that I can’t catch a damn turkey.”

The door rattled a little as her husband leaned against it.  “Look, Kas.  I came out here to apologize.  Not for spanking you.  You deserved every lick of that.  But because I don’t want to spend the next couple of days fighting with you, okay?  Can’t we just bury the hatchet and please have a good holiday?”

Kasey’s shoulders slumped.  She could feel her bottom lip start to tremble, and she really had to bite it hard to keep from melting into a puddle of futile tears.  She knew she should agree with him.  She didn’t want to ruin her holidays with constant arguments, either.  But her wounded pride kept her quiet until Ryan gave up.

“Fine,” he sighed.  “You don’t want me here, so I’m going back inside.  But we’re going to talk about this later.”

She heard his swishing footsteps retreating back through the grass and then a minute later the back door shut.  Not hard enough to be considered a slam, but definitely with a hint of tempered force.

The first hot tear coursed down Kasey’s cheek.  She wasn’t going to cry, she told herself sternly.  Debra wasn’t worth shedding one, stupid tear over!  But the hot sting intensified in her eyes and everything she looked at blurred.  She sniffled, and then just gave up as one salty drop after another spilled over her lashes and fell down her face into her lap.  Crossing her legs, she buried her hands in her lap.

The turkey trilled a low warble an instant before its black and white feathered head poked into her range of vision.  Kasey raised her head to find that the bird had crawled out of hiding and was now less than two feet away.  If she reached, she probably could have caught it. 

She pointed to the pet carrier instead, “Get your downy butt back in there.”

The turkey crawled into her lap instead, making itself at home in the nest of her crossed legs.  It trilled in contentment and picked at the smeared bits of potato salad on her pants.

“Stupid bird,” she grumbled, lowering her hand to give it a hesitant scratch on the head.  It raised its feathers with another agreeable coo.  “Buddy, you just made a big mistake.  The only good turkey is a dead one, roasted to perfection and smothered in cranberry jelly.”

And yet she continued to pet it, even going so far as to pick up her plate of leftovers and offer it to him there in her lap.

“Stupid bird,” she said one last time as it cleaned the last of the food from her plate.  Picking it up, she stuffed the reluctant turkey back into the pet carrier.  Then she closed the door firmly before shifting onto her knees and climbing wearily to her feet.  Giving the turkey only one last look, she walked out of the tool shed.  “Good night, Buddy.”

Buddy purred after her.

“You’re going to be good with yams and gravy,” she said, and locked the shed door.


 

To Be Continued...