Turkey for Dinner- Part II

Turkey for Dinner
(c) 2007 by Susan Atwood

“Aunt Ida? Do you need any help with that?”
Eric Hall arrived in the kitchen in time to see his Great-aunt Ida juggling the teakettle and her walker.
“Oh, no, Ricky, I’ve got it.” Eric, seeing her hand tremble with the weight of the kettle, had his doubts. “You sit right down there and I’ll get you some of those macaroons you bought yesterday.”
For a split second, Eric thought about refusing the cookies. For one thing, in the few days that he’d been staying with Great-Aunt Ida, he must have put on five pounds. Ida Judson was the proverbial food-pusher. But he knew that if he ate some cookies, she’d eat some too. By the time the social worker had contacted him, Ida had been missing meals on a regular basis. She was the one who needed to rebuild her strength after a bout with pneumonia that had landed her in the hospital.
Secondly, he hated macaroons.
Aunt Ida put a plate of cookies on the table and Eric took one. He bit into the sweet coconut and barely repressed a shudder.
“I’ve made reservations for Thanksgiving dinner at The Admiralty Inn. Have you ever been there, Aunt Ida?”
Eric jumped to make the tea when the kettle whistled and, whistling himself, surreptitiously dropped the half-eaten macaroon in the trash.
“Oh, Ricky, I forgot to tell you. We’ve been invited to dinner already.” Aunt Ida sat down heavily in her chair, even though she only weighed about ninety pounds.
“We have? I don’t feel right about that, Aunt Ida. I’ll just take you out and we’ll have a lovely meal. You’ll love The Admiralty Inn. They have a grand piano in the dining room and someone will play all those show tunes you’re always asking me to play for you. Only better!”
“Ricky, we’ve been invited by Mrs. Miller, down the street. As soon as she heard you were coming to visit, she asked us. You remember her, don’t you? You used to play with her grandchildren when you visited me in the summer. A boy and girl. Went to live with her after their parents died in a car accident. Very sad. I don’t remember the girl’s name, but the boy is Mark.” Aunt Ida smiled. “She remembered you right off.”
“The girl?” Eric asked, playing dumb. He knew her name almost better than he knew his own. Caitlin MacTavish Miller. Blonde pigtails, blue eyes, she’d been the girl of his dreams, except most of the time they’d been nightmares.
“No, Mrs. Miller.”
Cate Miller. She’d never given him the time of day after that Thanksgiving when she’d sat on a piece of pumpkin pie—whipped cream and all. Eric had had the bad luck to come into the room just as Cate stood up. He couldn’t help laughing—really it was funny. Cate didn’t see it that way. In fact, Cate blamed him for the whole thing, even though he’d never touched a piece of pumpkin pie once in his life. He was highly allergic to pumpkin. Cate didn’t know that, and had thrown the pie she’d scraped off the back of her purple velvet dress at him before she’d run out of the room. He'd had hives for two days.
It had been the worst Thanksgiving Day of his young life.
“Any chance Mrs. Miller’s grand-daughter will be at her house for dinner?” One could always hope she'd married and moved far, far away.
“Why, I believe she will be,” Aunt Ida answered.
Great. This could turn out to be the worst Thanksgiving Day of his adult life.