A Lightport Thanksgiving . . .

​     Hannah was glad her mother had given her the boiled potatoes to mash. She was able to take out all her frustrations as she repeatedly jammed the potato masher into the bowl. 

     “If you think I don’t notice your attitude, Hannah Elizabeth Anderson, you’re mistaken,”

     Hannah turned angrily to her mother. “What? I don’t mash potatoes the right way, either?”

     “That isn’t what I said, and you know it.”

     Hannah rolled her eyes as she turned back to the bowl in her hands. “Whatever.”

     “Hannah,” a stern voice spoke from the doorway, “can you come here please?”

     Great. She was in for it now. Her father was a quiet and gentle man, but one thing was guaranteed to get him riled up: anyone disrespecting his wife. Hannah left the bowl of potatoes on the kitchen counter and followed her father into the living room. She passed Kate and Chloe who were rolling out dough for a pie crust and heard them whispering about her. Aunt Sarah, who was topping a sweet potato casserole with pecans, caught her sister Gretchen’s eye across the kitchen. She knew what they were all thinking: “Hannah’s being dramatic, as usual.”

     Karl Anderson sat down in his favorite recliner and patted the small space beside him. “Too old for this now?”

     Hannah looked at him in surprise. An invitation to cuddle wasn’t what she was expecting. She grinned at her father as she shook her head, then she squeezed into the seat next him. He put an arm around her and brushed a kiss to her forehead. 

     “What’s going on with you, Hannah-Bug?” 

     “You know,” she huffed, crossing her arms. 

     He gave her a squeeze. “Okay, then, I’ll guess. You’re angry at me and your mother for grounding you.”

     “Ya think?”

     “Hannah,” Karl said sternly, “that punishment is completely fair, and you know it. You left with your friends last night without asking us. You didn’t tell us where you were going or when you would be back.”

     “I was home way before curfew!”

     Actually, her friends had dropped her off before nine. Isaiah thought one of his cousins could get him, Hannah, Rachel, and Micah into a club in Beverly, the next town over. He’d been wrong. They were quickly turned away because they were underage, then Isaiah had driven back to Lightport while they all argued about what to do instead. In the end, they’d gotten burgers at The Daymark, and that was it. It was an incredibly boring, ordinary night out, and yet she’d still gotten grounded. 

     “Curfew isn’t the point. You know our rules: tell us where you’re going, who you’ll be with, then -”

     “Call when you get there,” Hannah parroted, “and be home before curfew.”

     “Exactly. When you only do item number four of an agreement, you’ve broken the whole thing.”

     Her father was an accountant, and a stereotypical one. He was a nerd to the core who didn’t seem to match at all with his trendy, beautiful wife. Yet he was extremely romantic in his quiet way, loyal, and kind. Hannah’s mother pointed all of these things out whenever her husband lamented that he didn’t deserve her. 

     “Do you understand?” he prompted Hannah.

     “Yes, Daddy.”

     “Not to mention your aunt and cousin had just gotten here. It was rude to take off like that when we have guests. Do you understand that, too?”

     “Yes, Daddy.”

     “Good. Now go in there, apologize to your mother, and at least try to be pleasant? It’s Thanksgiving, sweetheart!”

     He squeezed her again and pressed a kiss to her cheek, eliciting a giggle from Hannah. It was amazing how her father simultaneously commanded her respect and made her feel safe and loved. She knew she could never get away with lying, sneaking out, or talking back, yet she also knew that she could never lose her parents’ love. 

     She rose from the recliner, and then her father got up and threw his arm around her. They entered the kitchen together, and at his prompting, Hannah apologized for her attitude. It was awkward for a moment as everyone resumed their cooking tasks, but then her father turned up the radio, which was already playing Christmas songs. As “Christmas Time is Here” filled the kitchen, Karl grabbed his wife around the waist and pulled her close. 

     “Karl!” Gretchen squealed. “My hands are covered in stuffing!” 

     “But this is my favorite Christmas song,” he protested, dipping his wife as he sang along.
 
     “The Charlie Brown song?” laughed Chloe. 

     “That’s what makes it so great.” Karl released his wife, then grabbed a startled Chloe and spun her around the kitchen. 

    Hannah watched as her father guided Chloe around the kitchen. Her cousin’s cheeks were pink, and her eyes shown with delight. Karl Anderson was not your stereotypical accountant when it came to dancing. He had some moves, and he’d actually taken some ballroom dancing classes in college. “To impress the girls, of course,” he’d explained. His talents make him a great partner for Chloe, who had never danced a waltz in her life. 

     “Knock, knock!” a boisterous voice called from the foyer. The pronouncement was followed by the appearance of Cliff Rockport in the doorway of the Anderson kitchen. He was a large man who filled every space he occupied in an intimidating way. He carried a cane to help him get around on the bad knee he’d injured fighting in the Korean War. That, combined with the permanent scowl on his face, always made Hannah slightly frightened of him. Hannah always had a difficult time imagining a four-year-old Beau happily playing in the old man’s house. 

     “Cliff!” Karl exclaimed as he spun Chloe again. “Come on in! We’re having a Christmas dance party.”

     “And trying to cook,” Gretchen added wryly. 

     Cliff entered the room with the rhythmic “tap, tap” of his cane and barked at the young man behind him.

     “Don’t hover in the doorway, Beau, get in here and put those pans down.”

     Beau looked sheepish as he entered the room, balancing two aluminum pans in his arms. Hannah hurried to help him, asking her mother where to set them. 

     “Thanks,” Beau murmured, his cheeks turning pink, probably from the warmth of the kitchen.

     “No problem,” Hannah smiled back. 

     “Ciff,” Gretchen protested as she lifted the lid on one of the pans. “I told you I was making stuffing.”

     “That’s not stuffing,” scoffed Beau’s grandfather. “It’s dressing. In West Virginia, we didn’t stuff cornbread up a bird’s -”

     “Cliff,” Hannah’s dad smoothly cut him off, knowing full well what kind of colorful language was going to come out of the mouth of the ex-marine. “Please tell me you still made your green bean casserole. I look forward to it every year.” 

     “Course I did. Gotta make sure you yankees do Thanksgiving right.  Unfortunately, there will be no pecan pie this year, will there, boy?”

     “Grandpa -” Beau started to protest.

     “No!” Cliff barked. “How many times I gotta tell you? Real men don’t bumble around, trippin over their own feet and droppin everything.”

     “I’m sorry, Mrs. Anderson,” Beau apologized, his face now red all the way to the tips of his ears, “but I dropped the pecan pie when we were loading up the car.”

     “That’s okay, Beau,” Gretchen told him gently, placing a hand reassuringly on his elbow, “it can happen to anyone. Besides, we’ve got plenty. We’re making a pumpkin pie and a chocolate pie.”

     “Choe and I are making the crusts,” Kate put in, “and maybe you and Hannah can make the filling?”

     “Sure,” Hannah told him, nudging him playfully, “it sounds more fun than potato mashing.”

     “I’ll mash those taters,” Cliff practically ordered, motioning for Hannah to hand him the bowl. “I had K.P. duty plenty of times in the service. Discipline, that’s what young men need more of these days. Beau, though? He’s too much like his mother. Daydreamin about horses. Damn fool woman was the one who took my boy away from me. He never woulda touched the hard stuff if he hadn’t been chasing dreams every which way with a flighty, silly girl.”

     Hannah’s heart sank as she watched Beau seem to fold in on himself, shame coloring his features. An awkward silence descended on the kitchen, and the exuberant strands of “Joy to the World” coming from the radio seemed completely out of place. 

     “Remember the year I dropped the turkey?” 

     Hannah grinned at her father as everyone laughed, partially in relief and partially at the humorous memory. Leave it to her dad to know how to lighten a somber mood. 

     “Yes!” Aunt Sarah exclaimed, already shaking with laughter. “You and Gretchen were newlyweds, and Karl insisted on making the turkey.”

     Gretchen, who was also laughing, put her arms around her husband. “He wanted so badly to impress our parents.”

     Kate and Hannah laughed too, having heard the story since they were little. 

     “Didn’t you drop it right in Grandpa’s lap?” asked Kate. 

      “Seriously, you did?” Chloe was laughing too, her eyes wide. 

     “Yes, I did,” Karl laughed. “It was cooked to perfection; a beautiful bird, I promise you. So I carry it out to the dining room -”

     “I’m not sure that tiny area in our apartment could have really been called a dining room,” interrupted Gretchen. 

     “Probably not,” agreed Karl, “but I was presenting it grandly anyway, only to trip over my own feet and dump the turkey, stuffing and all, right into my father-in-law’s lap.”

     The kitchen filled with laughter and merriment, and the song on the radio changed to “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” Karl crossed the kitchen to where Hannah and Beau were getting out the food processor to make the pumpkin filling. He set the roasted pumpkin, glistening golden orange on a baking pan, on the counter in front of the two teenagers. He gave Beau a commiserating wink and a clap on the shoulder. The teenage boy seemed to transform before Hannah’s eyes - his shoulders straightened and his gaze lifted. Before Karl turned back around to check on the turkey, Hannah grabbed him in a hug. 

     “I love you, Daddy,” she whispered. 
​
     “Love you too, Hannah-bug.”