Chapter 9: A Turkey Too Big

The turkey was twenty-two pounds, and it was Gene's fault.

He had ordered it online in October from the farm store, with one finger.

When I picked it up, the girl at the counter said, "Big party?"

There were four of us.

On Thanksgiving morning I stood in the kitchen on Water Street with my arms around a bird the size of a toddler.

I was trying to fit it into an oven built in 1971.

"It won't go in," I told the room.

Gene sat at the yellow table with the tablet propped on the sugar bowl, and the voice said, "Push."

"I have been pushing."

"Harder."

"You are enjoying this."

"I am seventy-five," said the voice. "I have to enjoy something."

Neil came up the ramp at noon with a bag of rolls and a bag of potatoes.

He stopped in the kitchen doorway at the sight of me, red-faced, wrestling a turkey.

"I can help," he said.

"You can hold the oven door."

"I can do that."

He held it, and between us we got the bird in at an angle that I do not think was in any of the cookbooks.

When it was shut he leaned against the counter, breathing a little, and grinned at me.

"What did you do with your Thanksgivings before?" I asked.

"Frozen dinner and a football game. My mother's in Florida, she goes to her sister's." He shrugged. "Then Gene emailed me."

"He emailed you."

"'Neil. Thursday. Two o'clock. Bring rolls.'" His mouth twitched. "I wrote back in four minutes. He's the only patient who answers his own mail."