You come home from school, sticky artwork in hand. Your eyes adjust to the dimness of the room; your nose takes in the scent of old sleep and stale beer. The curtains are still drawn, tangled sheets still strewn on the open futon.

            You’d spent the final hour of class cutting orange and brown paper into tiny triangles, then gluing them together to form some semblance of a turkey. Happy Thanksgiving! you’d written along its belly in your labored fourth-grade print. The teacher had talked about big family dinners with pumpkin pies, but you had stayed quiet because you didn’t remember that sort of thing. Some cultures don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, she’d said, and you wondered if maybe you belong to one of those.

            You follow the sound of a cupboard slamming and enter the kitchen to find your mother. She’s there in her grey sleep shirt with her back to you, digging a spoon into a bag of sugar.

            “Hi,” she says without turning around. You hear the familiar edge.

            You look down at your turkey and smooth a dog-eared triangle on its neck. You know this mood well and know not to talk. You know how your voice can make her recoil, like an elastic pulled back and ready to snap.  

            But the question has been thickening in your mind since the bell rang, since your teacher’s chirpy voice said, Enjoy your Thanksgiving! Some part of you knows you shouldn’t ask it, but another part hopes and can’t hold back. 

            “Why don’t we celebrate Thanksgiving?” you ask.

            Your mother stirs the sugar into her mug too hard. A small wave of coffee crashes over the edge. She turns to face you, her jaw tight, face puffy. Eyes like shards of glass.

            “What the fuck is there to be thankful for?”

            She turns back to the counter, but her words are still flying, lodging like darts in your skin.

            You open your mouth because you’re sure there are words. Some words you heard your teacher say. But it all feels dumb as you stare at her back, as you feel your face turn hot. You run to your room and slam the door, drop down on your butt behind it. You’re angry at something, maybe your mother, or maybe the teacher for making you take home the stupid turkey. As if bits of paper would make your mother smile, as if she would have placed it proudly on the fridge. As if you were going home to a place where people laughed, looked forward to things, laid placemats on the table.

            The turkey falls from your hand to the floor and you leave it there for the rest of the weekend. You watch it from the spot where you eat on your bed, some detached part of you lying flat.  

            In school on Monday, your teacher asks, “How was everyone’s Thanksgiving?” You hear distracted murmurs of “fine” and “good,” and then your teacher leans forward with a playful smile.

            “Can I tell you a secret?” she mock-whispers to the class. 

            The room goes quiet with anticipation.

            “I don’t really like turkey.”

            You hear gasps and giggles and feel your own lips curling.

            “Why not?” asks the tall boy who’s always first to speak.

            The teacher shrugs and scrunches her nose. “I guess I find it kind of dry.”

            “Like paper,” you hear your own voice say, then feel immediately embarrassed.  

            But your teacher’s eyes find you, and it feels like she’s seeing you for the very first time.

             “Exactly!” she says. “Like paper.” 

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