Jenny's hands trembled as they pulled the turkey from the oven and hefted it atop the stove. The aluminum pan bowed under the weight of the twenty-two pound tom, and she grunted. She examined the bird and wanted to cry. It still looked...pale. Like it needed a suntan. Mother's turkeys were always perfectly brown. The insides were tender and pink, dribbling moisture when a fork slid through a slice.
Forcing her mind from comparing her turkey to Mother's, Jenny took a knife and sliced through the side of the turkey. It looked wrinkled, and not at all smooth. She tore off a small chunk and tasted it, grimacing at the dryness. The family would be disappointed in Jenny's first turkey, especially when remembering Mitzi's.
Tears flooded Jenny's eyes, and she grabbed a dishtowel to blot her eyes. "Stupid turkey," she hissed at the helpless bird. Before she could spend more time dwelling on her imperfections, the timer dinged, indicating it was time to start the gravy.
Jenny consulted her cookbook and tried to follow the recipe, carefully ladling out the exact portion of the turkey drippings into the old cast iron skillet her mother always used to make gravy. Then she added the flour, thickening the mixture, and heating until it turned dark brown. When Jenny stirred in the milk, there was a popping sound, followed immediately by the hiss of boiling liquid. An acrid stench filled the air, and Jenny lowered the heat, desperately stirring the gravy mixture and praying for a miracle.
The smell must have drawn Dirk away from the pre-games, and he stuck his head in through the swinging door of the kitchen. "How's it going, honey?"
Jenny forced a bright smile as her hand frantically whipped the grayish-brown lumps. "Just great."
"Do you want me to send in your sister?"
She shook her head as she turned away from him and shut off the burner. "No. Everything's under control." She would rather burn everything on the menu than ask her little sister for help with cooking. Angela was no more proficient in the kitchen than she, which was why the duty of making Thanksgiving dinner had fallen to her.
When Jenny looked up again, she saw Dirk had gone, probably back to the living room with the rest of the family. She briefly thought about asking Marie for help, but the animosity between she and her mother-in-law stopped her. It would be bad enough to be ridiculed when the food was waiting on the table, but at least Marie would temper her comments if the rest of the family were present. Jenny was too vulnerable to face a one-on-one confrontation with her mother-in-law right then.
With a sigh, Jenny scraped the flour and drippings into the disposal, watching as the water and motor whisked it all away, as if it had never existed. Then she returned to the stove and started over. The next batch didn't scorch, but it was full of lumps. When Jenny tasted it, she frowned at the blandness, but a look at the clock told her she didn't have time to keep trying until she got it right. Exactly how long was eternity, anyway?
When the second oven light went out, Jenny removed the rolls and placed them on a wire rack, then returned to the turkey and tried to remove the stuffing from its innards to put in the chipped, green ceramic bowl Mother always used. The stuffing was soggy, but Jenny ignored the consistency as she went back to the skillet of gravy that was rapidly cooling into dough balls.
She bent down to retrieve her mother's gravy boat and was suddenly struck by the wrongness of having it in her kitchen, under her cabinet, when Mother had kept it prominently displayed in her oak hutch, built by Father right after their marriage. None of Mother's things fit in with hers yet. Jenny hadn't grown comfortable using them, but they were as much a tradition of Thanksgiving as the broccoli casserole.
"Oh, the casserole!" Jenny grabbed the boat and set it on the counter before opening the toaster oven she'd used to make the cheese layer crunchy. The once-yellow cheddar covering the broccoli spears was now dark brown in the center and black on the edges. The broken timer on the toaster oven seemed to grin evilly at her-still displaying 15:00. "How could I forget it's broken?" she muttered.
