A New Thanksgiving

I’m 46 years old and this is the first time in my entire life that I have ever prepared a Thanksgiving dinner. This is also the first holiday dinner that all of my children will be home with me.

Last year, their father and I divorced after twenty-three years together. It was ugly.

Thanksgiving was our first holiday apart and the children were with him. They would celebrate with their father and his family in the exact same way they always had since their very first Thanksgivings. I spent the day alone, at the Coast. In my hotel room, I opened the window wide. It was forty degrees and rainy outside, and the smell of the sea wrapped me in her warmth.

This year, it’s my turn.

This year, I will help my children create new traditions. Our traditions.

The first thing to go is the turkey. My children don’t particularly like turkey. They like pork roast. Stuffing? Not so much. Corn? Can’t get enough of it. Mashed potatoes and gravy are not to be missed and green beans keep the plate from looking unappetizingly monochromatic.

Pork roast crackling in the oven, the smell of garlic and olive oil seeping through the cracks in the door, I move into the dining room. As I putter about setting the table with the “good” silver and my mother’s Autumn china and the forest green cloth napkins, I realize I have no candles!

No candles?

It’s 4:00 on Thanksgiving Day and I have no candles?!

I fly over to Safeway. As I tip tap across the sidewalk in my smart black, low-heeled shoes, I pass a young boy. He is sitting facing the entrance to the store, his back to the street. He is bundled in too many holey sweaters. I bustle past him as he shivers his fingers down into his sleeves and holds up a cardboard sign asking for money. I’m in a hurry.

I need candles!

Safeway does not have what I need. They have apple-cinnamon scented candle gift packages and tea lights and orange candles-in-a-jar. They have nothing that will fit in my candlesticks. No tapers.

I turn to dash back out to the car, desperate to get to another grocery store before it closes. As I head for the exit, I see the boy through the glass doors. He is still sitting in the same place. His nose is dripping from the cold and the wind blows his blond hair out of his eyes. They are blue. They are not angry. They are not sad. They just are. And they lift me out of my candle-induced haze.

I start madly digging through my purse, scooping out all the change that jingles at the bottom. I hand my little offering to the boy and he smiles. He mounds the coins in to a small pile on the sidewalk in front of him. The cardboard sign gets wedged between his crossed legs and the tiny silver hill and his fingers retreat back into his sleeves.

I continue down the sidewalk but when I reach my car I can’t get in. I can feel the boy’s mother.

She is not with him.

I don’t know their story. I don’t know why they are not together. But they are not together and it is Thanksgiving and the boy is alone wearing too many holey sweaters sitting on a cold sidewalk with a pathetic pile of change for company.

I turn and go back to the boy.

“Hey,” I say when I get close enough for him to hear me. “What are you doing for dinner tonight?”

He looks up. Confused. “Uh…I think they’re serving dinner downtown somewhere.”

I nod and lean down closer to him. “My children and I are having dinner at six. You’re welcome to join us if you like.”

He looks a though he’s not quite sure what he’s supposed to do, so I fill the empty space between us by telling him where I live. His lips turn up in a half smile as he nods and repeats my directions.

“Six o’clock,” I say over my shoulder as I turn to walk to my car.

“Blue house,” he replies to my back.

In the car I am shocked at myself. I NEVER would have done this when I was married. My husband said that homeless people could not be trusted. “You never know about them,” he would say with his deep, important voice.

I smile. I’m glad I’m not married anymore.

I go to the next store and find my candles.

At home, I set a place at the table for the boy. Six o’clock comes and goes. I light the candles and wait a little longer.

Six-oh-five. No boy. I ask my oldest son to open the sparkling cider and take it to the table.

Six-ten. I carve the roast pork and fill the gravy boat.

Six-fourteen. A tentative tap on the front door. My nine-year-old son dashes to the living room, his little boy feet thumping loudly across the floor.

“Muh-mee,” he yells. “There’s a boy at the door.”

My heart jumps as I wipe my hands and follow my son’s voice into the living room. The outside light shines a circle around the figure standing on my front porch. Shines a circle around “the boy”.

When he sees me, he smiles, a look of relief on his face. “I was afraid I would be too late,” he apologizes before rushing on with his explanation. “It’s hard to tell what color a house is in the dark but I peeked in your window before I knocked and I saw your table all set for dinner so I thought I’d see.”

“I’m so glad you found us,” I smile back, extending my hand for his and pulling him inside. “My name is Puanani.”

“Hi,” he says, shuffling his tired, used to be red Converse over the threshold. “I’m David.”