The Thanksgiving That Almost Happened, Then Never Happened: Part 3
Tuesday, November 25th - The Smolder. Secrets do not announce themselves. They drip out. They stain. They find daylight.
BRENDA'S HOUSE - 9:00 AM
"Bella, baby, please. You're my firstborn girl, talk to me. Willis is down at the church, 'praying for discernment,' which means he's sitting in a pew drinking from a flask. Wallace won't answer. Wanda sent me a text about 'finding her authentic self' that read like a bad horoscope. And Bobby... God, Bella, I called Bobby and Barbara picked up and started crying about potato salad. WHAT IN THE HELL IS HAPPENING TO MY FAMILY?"
Bella held the phone away from her ear, the vodka from last night still a dull hammer behind her eyes. She watched Brad from the kitchen window, pacing the manicured lawn, screaming into his Bluetooth headset.
"Mom, it's... it's just pre-holiday stress. You know how it gets."
"Don't you lie to me, Isabella Marie Carter! I changed your diapers. I know your lying voice. It's the same one you used when you said you weren't the one who drew on the living room wall with permanent marker. Was it Wallace? Did that boy do something? Is he on drugs?"
Bella almost laughed. Drugs would be simpler. "No, Mom. He's not on drugs."
"Then what? Is it money? Did he and Wynona lose the house? Because we can help…"
"MOMMA, STOP!" Bella snapped, her composure shredding. "Just... stop. Everyone is fine. Brad is under a lot of pressure at work. Wallace and Wynona are... having issues. It's not our business. We'll all be there on Thursday, we'll eat your dry turkey, and we'll all pretend to like each other for a few hours. Okay? That's what we do."
The line was quiet for a moment.
"That's what we do," Brenda repeated, her voice small and defeated. "Okay, baby. I'll see you Thursday."
Bella hung up. She felt like shit.
She opened the family group chat. Her mother's cheerful message from yesterday was still sitting there, unanswered by all four siblings. No one had said a word. The silence was louder than any of the screaming from Saturday.
Her thumb hovered over the keyboard. She could type something. Smooth it over. Make an excuse. But what was the point? They were all liars now. At least the silence was honest.
She closed the app.
WANDA'S APARTMENT - 11:30 AM
The suitcase was gone, hidden in the trunk of her car. The confrontation had been a spectacular failure. She'd tried.
"William, I'm in love with someone else."
He'd blinked. "Is it Mark from your yoga class? I knew he was too flexible to be trusted."
"No, William, it's not Mark."
"Then who? I'll fight him, Wanda. I'll fucking fight for you."
"You can't fight her, William. Her name is Chloe."
The silence that followed was more profound than any scream. His face did a slow, tragic morph from confusion, to disbelief, to a dawning, humiliated horror.
"Her?" he'd whispered.
Now, he was a ghost in their home, drifting from room to room in a state of shock. He'd packed a bag of his own, a sad little duffel.
"I'm going to my brother's," he'd said, his voice hollow.
"Okay."
"Are you... are you going to bring her to Thanksgiving?"
The question hung in the air, absurd and devastating. Wanda just shook her head. He left without another word.
Her phone buzzed. It was Bella.
Bella: Mom knows something's up. The walls are closing in. What's your status?
Wanda: William knows. He's gone. Told him about Chloe.
Bella: Jesus Christ. You just had to out-do Wallace, didn't you?
Wanda: Fuck you. What's your damage?
Bella: Brad is losing his mind. Talking about "showing everyone" at Thanksgiving. He's going to make a scene. I can feel it.
Wanda: At least your husband is just a criminal. Mine's a victim. It's so much fucking sadder.
Wanda stared at Bella's last message. She almost threw her phone. Almost blocked her. But she didn't. Because as much as she hated Bella right now, she was going to need her when this all came crashing down.
She opened her texts with Chloe.
Chloe: Well? Is the deed done? Are you free, or are you still playing wifey for the weakling?
Wanda: It's done. He's gone.
Chloe: Now tell the family. Rip the band-aid off. I'm not being your mistress, Wanda. I'm your future. Start acting like it.
Wanda stared at Chloe's message. The thumbs up. The demand. It should have felt wrong. It should have felt like trading one cage for another. But at least with Chloe, she felt something. Even if that something was fear.
She threw her phone across the room. It hit the wall and landed in a potted fern. No one was giving her an inch. No room to breathe. Just demands and ultimatums from every direction.
BOBBY'S HOUSE - 1:15 PM
Barbara was in the kitchen, crying over a bowl of boiled potatoes. Bobby watched her from the doorway, a stranger in his own home.
"I just wanted it to be special," she sobbed. "I found a recipe online. It has gherkins and hard-boiled eggs in it. It looked so good in the picture."
"Stop crying, Barbara," Bobby said, his voice empty. "It's fucking potato salad. It's not worth tears."
"IT'S NOT ABOUT THE POTATO SALAD, BOBBY!" she shrieked, turning on him, her face blotchy and red. "It's about this family! Your family! They hate me! They've always hated me! And you... you just let them. You sit there in your fucking silence and you let them treat me like I'm some... some white trash idiot who doesn't know how to use a fork!"
Bobby took a step into the kitchen. The air went cold.
"You want to know why, Barbara? You want to know why my family doesn't respect you? It's not because you're white. It's because you're weak. You try so goddamn hard to be one of us, with your pathetic potato salad and your desperate little smiles. You're a ghost at the table, and everybody sees it. Including me."
The cruelty was so precise, so surgical, it stole the breath from her lungs. She stared at him, utterly broken.
He walked past her, opened the fridge, and took out a beer. "Don't make the salad. We're not going."
Barbara's voice was barely a whisper. "Why aren't we going?"
Bobby took a long pull from his beer. The truth sat on his tongue, heavy and rotten. Because I got fired three weeks ago and I've been lying to you every single day. Because I'm broke and a fraud and everything you think we have is built on credit cards I can't pay back.
But he didn't say it. He just said: "Because I don't want to."
He left her there, among the ruins of the potatoes. He went to his office and locked the door. He opened his bourbon. He had his own secrets, his own rot festering just beneath the surface. His silence wasn't just a shield; it was a cage. And he was starting to fear what would happen when the door finally opened.
WALLACE'S APARTMENT - 8:00 PM
Wynona was on the doorstep. She hadn't called. She just stood there, her arms crossed against the evening chill, her eyes puffy but dry.
"Let me in, Wallace."
He couldn't look at her. He opened the door.
She walked in, her eyes scanning the apartment like a detective. She saw the streak of blue Windex on the wall. She saw the single, clean coffee mug in the sink. She saw the emptiness.
"Where is he?" she asked, her voice terrifyingly calm.
"Where's who?"
"Don't," she said, turning to face him. "Don't you dare. Your sister Bella called me. She said there was a 'situation.' She said I should 'be prepared.' Prepared for what, Wallace? Is he living here? Did you move your boyfriend into our home?"
"It's not your home, Wynona. You live with your mother."
"BECAUSE YOU PUSHED ME OUT!" The calm shattered. "You with your fucking distance and your silent treatments and your 'I need space'! You were making space for him, weren't you? How long? How long have you been... this?"
He said nothing. The silence was his confession.
She let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. "All those times you couldn't look at me. All those times you flinched when I touched you. I thought it was me. I thought I was ugly. I thought I'd gotten fat. I spent thousands on therapy and yoga and fucking kale because my husband couldn't stand to fuck me. And the whole time... the whole time it was because you wanted to fuck a man."
"Wynona, please…"
"NO! FUCK YOUR 'PLEASE'!" She picked up a vase from the side table and hurled it at his head. He ducked. It exploded against the wall behind him. "You used me! You used me as your fucking beard for ten years! You stole my life! You are a coward and a liar and I hate you, Wallace! I HATE YOU!"
She was screaming now, tears finally streaming down her face. She grabbed her keys from her pocket and threw them at him. They hit his chest and fell to the floor.
"You want out? You're out. I'm filing for divorce on Friday. I'm taking you for everything you have, which isn't much, you pathetic piece of shit. I hope he's worth it. I hope he makes you real fucking happy."
She turned and walked out. The door slammed so hard the remaining vase on the shelf rattled. For a second, Wallace thought it would fall and shatter too. But it didn't. It just sat there, trembling.
Wallace slid down the wall to the floor, surrounded by the shattered glass. He sat there for a long time, glass crunching under his palms when he shifted.
His phone buzzed. Julian. You okay?
He wasn't. He typed: She knows. It's over.
Julian's response came fast. Then come home.
Home. Wallace looked around the apartment, this sterile box he'd been living in, this performance he'd maintained for a decade. It had never been home. Not really.
He didn't respond. He just sat in the wreckage, waiting for Thursday.
