ON the outskirts of the city the fields have turned red and the trees are all twisted and black. There is frost covering the meadows and smoke rising from the chimneys. In the park, in the very center of town, the swans rest their heads beneath their wings for comfort and warmth. The gardens have been put to bed, except for the one in the Owens yard. Cabbages are growing there, although some of them will be plucked from the rows this morning, and cooked with bouillon. Potatoes have already been dug up, boiled, and mashed, and are currently being flavored with salt, pepper, and sprigs from the rosemary that grows beside the gate. The willowware serving bowl has been rinsed clean and is drying on the rack.
“You’re using too much pepper,” Gillian tells her sister.
“I think I can manage to make mashed potatoes.” Sally has fixed them at every Thanksgiving dinner she’s cooked since she first left the aunts’ house. She is completely sure of what she’s doing, even though the kitchen utensils are old-fashioned and a bit rusty. But of course, since Gillian is such a changed woman she gives advice freely, even when she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
“I know about pepper,” Gillian insists. “That’s too much.”
“Well, I know potatoes,” Sally says, and as far as she’s concerned, that had better be that, especially if they want to serve dinner at three.
They arrived late last night; Ben and Gillian are staying in the attic, Kylie and Antonia are sharing what used to be a sitting room, and Sally is in the chilly little alcove up near the back stairs on a fold-out cot. The heat’s on the fritz, so they’ve dragged out all the old feather quilts and built a fire in every fireplace, and they’ve called the boiler man, Mr. Jenkins, to come repair whatever’s wrong. Even though it’s Thanksgiving morning and Mr. Jenkins doesn’t want to leave the comfort of his easy chair, when Frances got on the phone with him they all knew he’d be there by noon.
The aunts keep complaining that too much fuss is being made, but they smile when Kylie and Antonia grab them and kiss their cheeks and tell them how much they love them and insist they always will. The aunts are advised that they mustn’t be concerned that Scott Morrison is taking the bus up from Cambridge, since he’ll bring a sleeping bag and will camp out on the living room floor; they’ll barely even be aware of his presence, and that goes for the two roommates he’s bringing along as well.
The only cat left is Magpie, who is so ancient he gets up only in order to get to his food bowl. The rest of the time he’s curled onto a special silk cushion on a kitchen chair. One of Magpie’s eyes doesn’t open at all anymore, but his good eye is fixed on the turkey, which is cooling on an earthenware platter in the center of the wooden table. Buddy is being kept in the attic—Ben is there with him, feeding him the last of the carrots from the aunts’ garden—since Magpie has been known to catch baby bunnies who cower between the rows of cabbage. He’s been known to eat them whole.
“Don’t even think about it,” Gillian tells the cat when she sees him eyeing the turkey, but as soon as her back is turned, Sally takes a bit of white meat, which she herself would never eat, and feeds old Magpie by hand.
The aunts usually have a broiled chicken delivered from the market on Thanksgiving Day. One year they made do with frozen turkey dinners, and another year they said to hell with the whole silly holiday and had a nice pot roast. They were thinking of doing up another roast this year when the girls all insisted on coming to visit for the holiday.
“Oh, let them cook,” Jet tells her sister, who can’t stand the clinking and clanking of pots and pans. “They’re having fun.”
Sally stands at the sink, rinsing off the potato masher, the very same one she used as a child when she insisted on making nutritious suppers. She can see through the window to the yard, where Antonia and Kylie are running back and forth, chasing away the squirrels. Antonia wears one of Scott Morrison’s old sweaters, which she has dyed black, and it’s so big that when she waves her arms at the squirrels she looks as if she had long woolen hands. Kylie is laughing so hard she has to sit down on the ground. She points to one squirrel who refuses to move, a mean granddaddy who’s screaming at Antonia, since he considers this to be his garden; the cabbages they’ve been gathering he’s been watching all summer and fall.
“Those girls are pretty cute,” Gillian says when she comes to stand beside Sally. She meant to argue some more about the pepper, but she drops the subject when she sees the look on her sister’s face.