The Thanksgiving That Almost Happened, Then Never Happened: Part 2
Monday, November 24th - The Kindling Catches. The fallout does not come as yelling. It comes as silence. And silence knows how to bruise.
The silence after the FaceTime call wasn't peaceful. It was the heavy, suffocating quiet of a crime scene. The family group chat, usually a hellscape of memes and passive-aggressive articles, was a digital tomb.
Brenda Carter: Good morning, my babies! Who's excited for Thanksgiving? Wallace, your father wants to know if Wynona is still making her green bean casserole? We need to coordinate, people!
Her message hung in the void, unanswered. A single, cheerful buoy in a sea of shit.
BOBBY'S HOUSE - 9:14 AM
Bobby sat at his immaculate kitchen island, staring at his phone. Barbara hovered nearby, blending a green smoothie that smelled like cut grass and anxiety.
"Did you see your mom's text?" she asked, her voice too bright. "We should confirm we're bringing the potato salad. I got the ingredients. I'm thinking of adding a little smoked paprika this year. For color."
Bobby didn't look up. His thumb scrolled through the empty chat log, stopping on Wallace's last, panicked lie: IT WAS MY TRAINER. HE WAS HELPING ME MOVE A COUCH.
"Bobby? Honey?"
"Don't make the potato salad, Barbara." His voice was flat, devoid of all emotion.
"What? Why? I thought…"
"Just don't." He finally looked at her, and the cold fury in his eyes made her take a step back. "In fact, don't talk to anyone in my family until I tell you to. Don't text. Don't call. You understand me?"
"What is going on with you? With everyone? Is this about Wallace? Because people can have friends over, Bobby, it's not a crime to have a shirtless friend…"
He slammed his hand on the granite countertop so hard the smoothie pitcher jumped. "DID HE LOOK LIKE HE WAS MOVING A FUCKING COUCH, BARBARA? DID HE?"
Barbara's face crumpled. She looked like a scolded child.
Her voice came out small, shaking. "Bobby, you've been home for three weeks. Every day. Just sitting in that office. Are you... are you still going to work?"
His jaw clenched so hard she could hear his teeth grind. "I said don't talk to me."
She left the kitchen. He heard her crying in the bathroom. He didn't follow.
Bobby stood up, his chair screeching against the floor. He locked himself in his home office. He didn't make a call. He just sat in the dark, staring at a single, framed photo on his desk: him and his siblings as kids, arms slung around each other, faces split with real, unforced smiles.
He picked it up and, with a violent sweep of his arm, sent it crashing into the wall. Glass shattered. The frame split down the middle, separating him from his siblings.
His phone buzzed on the desk. His mother's text, still sitting there unanswered. Who's excited for Thanksgiving?
He turned the phone face down.
BELLA'S MCMANSION - 11:03 AM
The door to Brad's home office was closed, but Bella could hear the low, frantic murmur of his voice. He was on another "damage control" call. She poured a generous vodka into her orange juice and scrolled through her own private hell.
A text from her mother: Bella, baby, call me. I'm getting a bad feeling. Is everything okay with you and Brad?
A text from Wanda in their separate, spouses-excluded chat: So… we just gonna pretend we didn't see our brother's live-in boyfriend?
Brad's office door flew open. He stormed out, his face pale and gleaming with sweat. "Those sanctimonious fucks," he hissed, not even looking at her. "Acting like they've never fudged a number. They're building a fucking coffin for me, Bella. A goddamn coffin."
He poured three fingers of bourbon, his hands shaking. "But they don't have the final nail. Not yet." He downed it in one gulp. "We are going to that Thanksgiving. We are going to smile, and we are going to show every single one of them that Brad Cushing is not a man you fuck with. You hear me?"
He finally looked at her, his eyes wide, bordering on unhinged. He didn't see the terror in her eyes. He saw a prop. A part of his defense strategy.
"Yeah, Brad," she whispered, her voice hollow. "I hear you."
He leaned in, his breath a toxic cloud of bourbon and desperation. "And if your faggot brother wants to bring his new 'roommate,' he can. It'll be a good distraction from all the success sitting at my end of the table."
Bella flinched. Not just at the word, but at the ease with which he said it. Like it was nothing. Like Wallace was nothing. She wondered, briefly, if Brad talked about her that way when she wasn't in the room. If she was just another liability he needed to manage. Another problem to solve with the right spin and a convincing smile.
He stumbled back into his office, already dialing another number. She watched him go, this man she'd built a life with, and felt absolutely nothing.
Her phone lit up again. Her mother's text, hours old now. Is everything okay with you and Brad?
She swiped it away without reading it twice.
WANDA'S APARTMENT - 2:47 PM
Wanda was on the floor of her walk-in closet, surrounded by a fortress of shoeboxes and discarded clothes. William stood in the doorway, his kind, stupid face a mask of confusion.
"Honey? What are you doing in there? I thought we were going to the farmers market."
"I'm looking for my… emerald necklace," she lied, pulling a suitcase from the top shelf. "Mom's wearing hers for Thanksgiving. You know how it is."
She was packing. Not for Thanksgiving. For the rest of her life. She was throwing silks and cashmere into the bag like they were rags.
"Wanda, can we… can we talk about last night? You said some things…"
She stopped, a black lace bra in her hand. She had told him she wasn't in love with him. She hadn't mentioned Chloe. She had hoped that would be enough. But he was like a puppy, loyal and dumb, thinking a treat and a pat on the head could fix a ruptured aorta.
"William, not now."
"Is it… is it because of the baby thing? Because we can try again. The doctor said…"
"IT'S NOT THE BABY THING!" she screamed, whirling around to face him. The raw pain in her voice shocked them both. "It's not the fucking baby thing, William! It's the everything thing! It's the way you chew your food! It's the way you still listen to Dave Matthews! It's the fact that looking at you feels like reading a book I already know the ending to, and the ending is fucking boring!"
He stared at her, his mouth open, tears actually starting to fall. And then, like clockwork, he tried to fix it. "We can go to counseling. Dr. Patterson said we made real progress last time. We can try harder, I can try harder, I can…"
"William, stop."
"I love you, Wanda. I love you so much. Whatever I did, just tell me and I'll…"
"You didn't DO anything!" she screamed. "That's the problem! You're perfect! You're a perfect, boring, suffocating golden retriever of a man and I CAN'T BREATHE!"
The words hung in the air between them like a death sentence.
William's face crumpled completely. He made a sound, something between a sob and a gasp, and stumbled backward out of the closet. She heard him in the living room, the couch springs creaking as he collapsed onto it.
She felt a surge of self-loathing so potent it made her dizzy. This was why she needed Chloe. Chloe who was sharp edges and fire. Chloe who wouldn't cry on the couch while she packed her life into a suitcase.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Chloe: You telling him today or am I? I'm not spending Thanksgiving as your dirty little secret, Wanda. I'm not built for that.
Wanda closed her eyes. The walls were closing in.
Wanda: Today. I'm doing it today.
As she zipped the suitcase closed, her phone buzzed again. Her mother. We need to coordinate, people!
Wanda silenced her phone and shoved it in her pocket.
WALLACE'S APARTMENT - 6:30 PM
The apartment was spotless. Wallace had scrubbed every surface, trying to erase the ghost of the morning, the ghost of Julian. But Julian was still there, sitting calmly on the now-righted couch, sipping a cup of tea.
"You need to tell Wynona," Julian said, his voice calm and infuriatingly rational. "Before she hears it from your sister, the one who sounds like a chain-smoking fishwife."
"That's Wanda," Wallace muttered, spraying Windex on a clean mirror. "And I can't. Not like this."
"You think there's a better way? A Hallmark card? 'Sorry I'm gay, hope you like the new toaster'?"
"FUCK YOU, JULIAN!" Wallace screamed, hurling the Windex bottle at the wall. It bounced off, leaving a blue streak. "You don't get it! This isn't just about me! This is my family! This is… this is everything!"
Julian didn't even flinch. He took a slow sip of tea. "No, baby. That was everything." He gestured at the apartment, the clean surfaces, the beige walls. "This? This is just where you've been sitting. Waiting for permission to leave."
He set his teacup down gently on the coffee table. "I'm not asking you to choose me over them, Wallace. I'm asking you to choose yourself. But if you can't do that..."
He walked toward the door. "Well. You know where I'll be."
The door clicked shut. Wallace stood alone in the silence, surrounded by the clean, empty shell of his old life. He picked up his phone. Dozens of missed calls from his mother. One text from Wynona.
Wynona: My mom says I should come home. She says there's trouble. Call me, Wallace. Please. Just tell me what's going on.
He typed out a dozen replies. It's nothing. Work is stressful. I'm sick. He deleted them all. He settled on the coward's response.
Wallace: I can't talk right now. It's a bad time.
His mother's text was still there, beneath Wynona's. Wallace, your father wants to know if Wynona is still making her green bean casserole?
He didn't have an answer. For any of it.
He put the phone down. Outside, the sun was setting. The apartment filled with shadows. He didn't turn on the lights.
