Thanksgiving was delicious as always. I was never one to get excited about food, but mom’s holiday food was always unbelievable. She would spend all day cooking, while dad and I got the dining room cleaned out and ready for the family to come around. Though it was only half the family that actually sat in the dining room, usually Mom, Aunt Sharon, Cindy, Mariah and Tessa, Grandma and Great Aunt Sally. Dad, Me, my cousins Jackie, Sam and Rocco, Uncle Ted, Joe, Pat and Brad and Grampy all sat in the living room, occupying the couch, chairs, arm rests and floors to watch football.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I noticed the little jump as I wondered who it was. I stopped, my plate on my knee, my hand halfway into my jeans when I realized that I was hoping it was someone in particular who’d sent the text. I paused in that moment, it was a weird feeling…knowing I wanted to talk to someone…I wanted…someone.
Michelle: Happy thanksgiving! Gobble Gobble!
I grinned and laughed, placing the plate on the floor and flipping open my phone to text her back.
Gobble, gobble? We kill our turkey before we eat it. Happy Thanksgiving!
I smirked and slid my phone back into my pocket, resuming my potatoes and gravy and watching the Browns and the Bears, or the Vikings and the Colts, whatever was going on, on the screen. I wasn’t sure about the teams, and wasn’t too big on football to begin with, but I always watched, just to watch something. I was sure I could get into football if I wanted to.
My family had asked about my friends at school, and my classes. I told them about Jake and Benny and Dan, and that there were girls next door that Jake tried to date, however I was careful to not bring up Michelle. It wasn’t that I wasn’t thinking about her, which was totally not the case; I just didn’t want anyone to think anything about it. We were friends…if I mentioned girls names, it’d be more.
But I thought about her a lot. We hung out so much at school; it was hard not to think about someone you spent at least 2 hours a day with. And that was being conservative. She was my best friend there.
I needed more friends. Maybe when I got back I would hang with Benny and Dan more.
But I missed her, and that was weird. But I could tell the little mousy girl anything and she’d be there. She was reliable when I really didn’t have anything to rely on.
The phone buzzed again and I smirked, picking it out of my pocket and unlocking the screen once more.
Michelle: Bet my dad cooks better turkey than your mom.
False. No one cooks better turkey than my mom. If Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemima and Paula fucking Deen all piled together their cooking skill, it would still lose.
Michelle: Aunt Jemima only makes pancakes.
Maple Pancake stuffing.
Michelle: That needs to happen.
Fuck yes it does!
I didn’t notice I was quietly laughing to myself until I put the phone away and choked on a slice of cranberry sauce. I shook my head and removed myself from the living room, tossing my paper plate into the trashcan and going to scope out the dessert table.
“you’re too skinny Brayden Michael! Eat!” Grandma shoved a plate of apple pie with a large scoop of ice cream on top into my hands. I had a psychic grandma apparently. “Sit with me. You’re so big now! I want to talk to my grandson!”
You know that feeling of dread when your senile grandmother wants to talk about what you’ve been doing for the past 3 months? I would give up my slice of pie to get back to the football game.
Bu it wasn’t bad. Grandma asked how I was feeling, about chemo, about school and about track. Cancer was kind of a taboo subject in the house, and no one would ever talk to me about it. It was always directed at mom, who would quietly tell them that we didn’t know until Friday. Grandma didn’t fuck around like that, but she, herself had survived lung and breast cancer, while still going all over the place with Grampy to see the 50 states. She wasn’t afraid of cancer, and she was kind of a hero in that way.
Maybe I’d take after her and not die from this thing. And that made talking honestly about it with her possible. I sliced into her warm pie and ice cream and talked with my grandma the way I would have talked to dad if he would stop pretending I wasn’t sick. She was comforting, and made me hot chocolate to go with my pie, she hugged me and said that it would be ok. She was the best Gram ever.
It was nice to think that I would take after her and beat it. And I did, right up until the doctor came in the next day after an x-ray of my leg. I’d never seen Dr. Coble look so helpless.
I wasn’t going back to school. I had emergency surgery Monday morning. The cancer hadn’t slowed down, it’d spread. I was losing my leg.
