Chapter 2 - The Table in North York
The radiator in my mother’s apartment didn't just hiss; it knocked with the steady, violent rhythm of an old iron heart.
“Margo, you’re going to crack my laminate,” my mother said, but she was laughing so hard she had to lean her forehead against the refrigerator door. She was wearing her teal cardigan with the mismatched plastic buttons and the apron my sister and I had bought her at the Canadian National Exhibition when we were in middle school.
Between us on the small Formica kitchen table sat the twenty-two-pound turkey, resting on Brenda’s heavy ceramic platter like an uninvited king.
Across from us, Sandra from apartment 4B was already holding a bread knife and a pair of poultry shears she’d brought from down the hall. Sandra was seventy-two, wore thick prescription glasses on a beaded chain, and had lived in the building since my father was still alive and driving a delivery truck for the bakery on Bathurst.
“Look at the skin on this,” Sandra said, tapping the blistered, amber-gold drumstick with the flat of the knife. “Look at that color. What did you use, butter or lard?”
“Unsalted butter with sage and lemon zest,” I said. My voice was still shaking, but the tremor was changing from shock into something lighter, something that felt embarrassingly close to relief. “Under the skin. Every forty minutes since seven this morning.”
“She’s got her father’s hands,” Sandra told my mother, nodding with solemn authority. “Frank could always tell when the crust was right just by tapping the loaf. You don't get that from a book.”
My mother took down three mismatched plates from the open cupboard—two floral Corelle and one chipped stoneware from an old set of four. There were no linen napkins. There were no sterling silver napkin rings engraved with family crests. We had a roll of paper towels standing in a wicker holder and a jar of cranberry sauce Sandra had brought over in a repurposed pickle jar.
When I carved into the breast, the juice pooled across the platter, clear and steaming. It wasn't dry. It wasn't stringy. It smelled of rosemary, garlic, and forty minutes of frantic highway driving.
“Sit down,” my mother said, pressing her palm between my shoulder blades as I tried to clear the carving board. “Sit down and eat your own food, Margo. You’ve been on your feet since five.”
I sat. The vinyl chair sighed beneath me.
For seven years, every Thanksgiving had begun with a performance. I had spent hours coordinating outfits with Graham so we looked like an appropriate unit for the Hendrick family Christmas card. I had coached Theo in the car about indoor voices and not touching Walter’s grandfather clock. I had stood in Brenda’s kitchen offering to peel potatoes, chop carrots, and wash dishes, only to have Brenda gently take the peeler out of my hands and say, “Oh, let Renee do it, dear, she knows how we like the skins cut.”
Here, Sandra took two slices of white meat, spooned canned gravy over the top, and let out an audible groan of appreciation.
“You tell your mother-in-law,” Sandra said between bites, pointing her fork at me, “that if she wants to eat shoe leather, she can buy a rotisserie chicken from the Metro. This is real food.”
My phone buzzed on the Formica table.
Graham (3 Missed Calls)
Brenda (1 Missed Call)
Renee (1 Text Message)
I flipped the screen over so the black casing faced up.
“He didn't come with you,” my mother said. It wasn't a question. She was looking at me over the rim of her tea mug, her brown eyes steady and unblinking.
“He stayed,” I said.
“He’s thirty-six years old, Margo. A man who stays at his mother’s table while his wife drives away with the dinner isn't confused. He’s comfortable.”
“He didn't know what to do,” I said, the reflex of defending him rising in my throat before I could choke it back down. “It happened fast. I picked it up and walked out in about thirty seconds.”
“Good,” my mother said, reaching across the table and covering my hand with her dry, flour-dusted fingers. “You should have walked out three years ago when she told you Theo’s speech delay was because you worked full-time at the clinic.”
I swallowed hard, the turkey turning dry in my mouth for an entirely different reason. I had forgotten she remembered that. I had mentioned it once, casually, over the phone while folding laundry in our basement, trying to laugh it off so it wouldn't sound like a wound.
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My mother hadn't laughed then, and she wasn't laughing now.
The knocking on the radiator picked up speed, the pipes clanking in the walls like iron bones, while my phone buzzed against the table again, a long, persistent vibration that skittered two inches across the Formica before dying out.
