May We Be Forgiven

Londisizwe and his tea, and even though it has been months, I burp and the flavor repeats.
    I look down the length of the table and see young and old talking, passing platters of turkey and stuffing, sweet and savory, embracing the season. Ricardo hands me the cranberry sauce. “Ashley and I made it,” he says, proudly. “We squeeeezzzed the lemons.”
    “No such thing as too much gravy,” Cy says as the gravy boat circulates.
    I look at Nate and Ashley and remember Thanksgiving last year, when they were curled in their chairs like spineless lumps, their electronics in hand, eyes focused on the small screens; the only things engaged were their thumbs. I remember looking at them with disdain as they sat inert, unaware of their mother enslaved in the kitchen, their father bloviating at the guests. And now Nate turns to the guests and inquires, “Does everyone have everything they need?” And Ashley asks Lillian, “Can I get you anything else?”
    In the living room, the television is on—the movie Mighty Joe Young is playing, and I ask Nate to turn it off, and he does. I am surveying the situation, comforted that I can actually feel pleased. In fact, I notice that I feel nothing except benevolence—free-floating good will.
    It is Thanksgiving and I do not fear the other shoe falling; actually, I am not even wearing shoes. There is a distinct absence of tension, of worry that something might explode, erupt, or otherwise go wrong. I note the absence of worry and the sense that in the past that absence of anxiety would have caused me to panic, but now it is something I simply notice and then let go—carrying on.
    I am looking down the table thinking of everyone I’ve ever known; every hello and goodbye sweeps through me like an autumn breeze. I am porous, nonstick.
    “A prayer?” Cy suggests.
    Our heads are bowed.
    “ Itadakimasu, ” Nate says in Japanese. “I humbly receive.”
    “Our Father, for this day, for this food we thank Thee,” Ricardo’s aunt offers.
    “My turn,” Ashley says, standing up before the aunt is done. “So, like, it’s been a really wild ride,” she says. “But there’s a book I read this summer and I wanted to share it with you.” Ashley then begins to read from a page she’s printed out:
    I do not think of all the misery, but of the glory that remains. Go outside into the fields, nature and the sun, go out and seek happiness in yourself and in God. Think of the beauty that again and again discharges itself within and without you and be happy.

    “Very nice,” Cy says. “Was that Whitman? Longfellow?”
    “Anne Frank,” Ashley says.
    Cy waits a moment before raising his glass. “Well, I want to thank you, all of you. It has been a very good year for Madeline and me, moving back into our home. I don’t know why we ever left. La-hoolum!”
    Madeline leans over and whispers loudly to Cy, “Thanksgiving is an American holiday, not a Jewish holiday.”
    Lillian leans over and, while pointing towards Madeline and Cy, asks Jason, “Whose people are those?”
    Jason shrugs. “Dunno.”
    “I didn’t know Claire’s parents were Caucasian,” Lillian says.
    “Maybe Claire was adopted,” Jason suggests.
    “And where is Claire anyway?” Lillian asks. “I thought they killed Jane, did they kill Claire too?”

    W e eat, we gorge, we stuff ourselves, greedily devouring everything. Plates are passed for seconds and thirds. Aunt Christina’s ambrosia is oddly addictive; after my third helping, she tells me that the secret ingredient is heavy mayonnaise. I skip a fourth serving and load up on turkey. We eat until we are sated and still we keep going, eating until we are in pain, until we are suffering, because that is the new American tradition.
    “I don’t even like sweet potatoes and I had two helpings,” Ashley says, pushing herself away from the table.
    “The bird was perfect,” Madeline says.
    We take a break before dessert; the children work as a team and clear the table.
    Mrs. Gao and Ching Lan and her mother insist on helping to clean up. Mrs. Gao brought Tupperware containers—“my gift to you,” she says. “I love these things; they burp when you close them.”
    I am so overstuffed that I can literally go no farther than the living-room sofa. I lie there thinking of George eating pressed turkey breast, jellied cranberry slices still bearing the ringlike indentations from the can, lumpy gravy, and glutinous white-bread stuffing, and I wonder: Is there