The Thanksgiving That Almost Happened, Then Never Happened: Part 4
Wednesday, November 26th - The Inferno. People think the explosion is loud. Sometimes it arrives as a group chat notification.
The Carter family group chat had become a digital ghost town, a silent witness to the coming storm. Until 8:17 AM.
Bella: Brad was arrested this morning. Embezzlement. We won't be coming tomorrow. Don't call.
The words hung in the digital void, stark and brutal. There was no "allegedly." No "there's been a misunderstanding." Just a statement of fact, cold and final.
In her kitchen, Brenda Carter read the text, her hand flying to her mouth. A low moan escaped her lips. "Willis! WILLIS!"
Before Willis could even get from his recliner, the phone vibrated again.
Wanda: Since we're airing things out. I'm leaving William. I'm in love with a woman. Her name is Chloe. I'm sorry you had to find out like this.
Brenda's legs gave out. She slid down the cabinet, the phone clattering to the floor. "Oh, dear Jesus... no..."
Willis rushed in, his face ashen. "Brenda? What is it? Is it the kids?" He picked up the phone just as it buzzed a third time, a final, brutal kick to the gut.
Wallace: Fuck it. I'm leaving Wynona. I'm gay. I'm in love with Julian. The man you all saw. Happy fucking Thanksgiving.
Willis stared at the screen. His jaw worked, but no sound came out. He looked from the phone to his wife, crumpled on the floor, then back to the phone. With a roar of pure, unadulterated rage, he hurled the device against the stainless-steel refrigerator. It exploded into a shower of plastic and glass.
"The sins of the father..." he bellowed, his voice cracking. "THE SINS OF THE FATHER!"
BOBBY'S HOUSE - 8:25 AM
Bobby's phone lit up on his desk, the screen flashing with the three consecutive texts. He didn't need to read them. He knew. He'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop. He took a long, slow pull from his bourbon bottle. It was 8:25 in the morning.
Barbara burst into his office without knocking, her face a mask of hysterical relief. "Bobby! Oh my God, did you see? It's not about my potato salad! It's... it's everything! Bella's husband is a criminal! And Wallace is... and Wanda is... oh my God!"
She was almost giddy, the weight of being the family pariah momentarily lifted by the sheer scale of the others' catastrophes.
Bobby looked at her, his eyes dead. "Get out."
"But Bobby…"
"I said get the FUCK OUT!" he roared, standing up so fast his chair toppled over backwards. "Pack a bag. Take Brandon. Go to your mother's."
"What? Why?"
"BECAUSE I CAN'T LOOK AT YOUR STUPID FACE FOR ONE MORE SECOND!" he screamed, spittle flying from his lips. "Don't you get it? The whole fucking thing is over! There is no Thanksgiving! There is no family! It's all a goddamn lie! NOW GET OUT BEFORE I THROW YOU OUT!"
Barbara's voice was 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?"
"GET OUT!"
Barbara fled, sobbing down the hallway. He heard her in their bedroom, throwing things into a suitcase, crying so hard she was hyperventilating.
Bobby sat in the silence. His phone buzzed. An email. Subject line: "Final Notice - Corporate AmEx Account." He didn't open it. There were seventeen others just like it in his inbox. All final notices. All proof that the life he'd built was purchased on credit he could never repay.
He opened his desk drawer. The termination letter was still there, folded into a neat square. Effective immediately. Performance-based separation. Corporate speak for "you're not good enough anymore."
Three weeks ago, they'd walked him out. Box in his arms. Security escort. The whole humiliating parade. He'd driven home, parked in the driveway, and sat there for an hour trying to figure out how to tell Barbara their lives were over.
He still hadn't figured it out.
He heard the front door close. Barbara's car starting. The sound of gravel under tires as she pulled away with their son.
Bobby was alone. He picked up his phone. His mother's text was coming in.
He turned the phone off.
BRENDA'S HOUSE - 8:30 AM
Brenda sat on the kitchen floor, Willis's destroyed phone in pieces around her. Her own phone was in her lap, screen glowing with those three messages. She read them again. And again. As if reading them enough times would make them say something different.
Willis was at the table, his flask in his hand, drinking straight from it now. No glass. No pretense.
"What did we do wrong?" Brenda's voice was barely a whisper.
Willis didn't answer. Just took another pull from the flask.
"Willis, I'm asking you. What did we do? How did we lose all four of them?"
He slammed the flask down. "We didn't do nothing wrong, Brenda! This is on them! This is their sin! Their choices!"
"They're still our babies…"
"THEY'RE NOT BABIES ANYMORE!" he roared. "They're grown people making grown decisions and dragging our family name through the MUD! Embezzlement! Homosexuality! Adultery! This is... this is Sodom and Gomorrah right here in our own bloodline!"
Brenda looked at him, this man she'd loved for forty years, and saw a stranger. "Get out."
"What?"
"Get out of my kitchen. Go to your church. Go to your pew. Go drink yourself stupid with your God who apparently couldn't protect our family. But get out of my sight."
Willis stood, his face purple with rage. He grabbed his keys. "I'll be at my brother's. Call me when you come to your senses."
He left. The door slammed.
Brenda sat alone in the silence. The turkey was in the fridge, thawing. The sweet potatoes were peeled. The table was set for twelve.
She looked at her phone one more time. At her babies, all of them drowning, all of them beyond her reach.
She typed slowly, her arthritic fingers shaking on the screen.
Brenda: I still love you. All of you. Always.
She hit send to the group chat. Then she put her phone down, lowered her head, and wept.
BELLA'S MCMANSION - 9:45 AM
The house was swarming. Men in cheap suits with FBI windbreakers. They were boxing up computers, files, even Brad's prized golf clubs. Bella sat on the bottom step of the grand staircase, a single suitcase beside her. She was numb. She had called a lawyer. She had called a locksmith. She had not called Brad.
One of the agents, a woman with a kind, tired face, approached her. "Mrs. Cushing, we're almost done here. Is there somewhere you and your son can go?"
Bella just nodded. Her phone buzzed incessantly. Mom. Dad. Wanda. Wallace. She ignored them all. There was only one person she wanted to talk to, the one person who would understand the specific flavor of her hell.
She dialed Bobby.
It rang once. Twice. He picked up. No greeting. Just the sound of his breathing.
"They took him," Bella whispered, her voice raw.
"I know," Bobby said, his voice flat.
"He looked so small. In his custom-made suit... he looked so small."
Silence on the line.
"Bobby... where are you?"
"Nowhere," he said. And then, "Everywhere."
"Are you... are you coming tomorrow?"
A bitter, hollow laugh echoed down the line. "For what, Bella? For the turkey? For Mom's sweet potato pie that tastes like despair? To sit across from Wanda's fucking girlfriend and Wallace's boyfriend and pretend any of this is normal?"
Tears finally welled in Bella's eyes. "So that's it? We just... give up?"
"We gave up a long time ago, Bella," Bobby said, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. "We just didn't have the guts to admit it until now."
He hung up.
Bella lowered the phone. The FBI agents were leaving. The house was suddenly, terrifyingly quiet. She was alone. Truly alone.
She looked around at the cavernous foyer, the glittering chandelier, the art on the walls—all bought with stolen money. Her phone buzzed. The neighbor. Billy's asking when he can come home.
Home. There was no home. Not anymore.
She texted back: Keep him another night. I'll explain tomorrow.
But she didn't know how to explain any of this to a ten-year-old boy who'd just watched his father get arrested and didn't know that man wasn't even his real father.
WANDA'S APARTMENT - 2:00 PM
Chloe was there, finally. She was everything William wasn't: sharp, angular, dressed in black, a tattoo of a snake peeking out from her collar. She was packing Wanda's remaining things with a ruthless efficiency.
"See? Not so hard," Chloe said, tossing a stack of sweaters into a box. "You just had to burn it down."
Wanda was watching her, a knot of dread and desire tightening in her stomach. "My mom... she texted. She just said 'I still love you.' That's it. No questions. Nothing."
"Good. That's her job," Chloe said without looking up. "Now you're free."
"Free," Wanda repeated, the word tasting like ash. Free from William's gentle, boring love. Free from her family's expectations. Free to stand in the smoldering wreckage of every relationship she'd ever known.
Her phone rang. It was William. She let it go to voicemail. A moment later, it dinged.
A text from his brother.
Mark: You are a disgusting piece of shit. He's destroyed. I hope you and your dyke girlfriend are happy. Don't ever contact him again.
Wanda flinched. The ugliness of it, the raw hatred, was a physical blow.
Chloe saw her face. She came over, cupped Wanda's chin with a cold hand. "Hey. Look at me. Fuck them. All of them. They don't get a vote. This is your life now. With me."
She kissed her, hard. It felt less like a kiss and more like a brand.
WALLACE'S APARTMENT - 6:00 PM
Julian was back. He was cooking pasta in Wallace's kitchen as if he owned the place. The shattered vase was swept up. The blue Windex streak was still there.
"You talked to a lawyer?" Julian asked, stirring the sauce.
Wallace was staring out the window at the darkening sky. "No."
"You need to. Before she does."
"What's the point?" Wallace's voice was a hollow echo. "There's nothing to take."
"There's your dignity. What's left of it." Julian plated the food. "Eat. You need your strength for tomorrow."
Wallace turned from the window. "I'm not going."
Julian stopped, fork halfway to his mouth. "What do you mean you're not going?"
"I mean I'm not going to Thanksgiving. I can't. I can't sit there and see the look on my parents' faces."
"So that's it? You're just going to hide in here? After all this? After I waited for you?" Julian put the fork down. "No. Fuck that. We are going. We are walking in that door together. We are holding our heads up. You are not going to act like what we are is something to be ashamed of."
"It's not about shame, Julian! It's about... it's about blowing up their entire world!"
"Their world was already a fucking lie, Wallace! You were the lie! Now you're the truth. And the truth doesn't get to hide."
Julian's eyes were blazing. This was the fight for their future, and he was fighting dirty. "You show up. You look your father in his judgmental, hypocrite eyes, and you claim your place at that table. Or I walk out that door and you can spend the rest of your life in this beige prison alone."
It was an ultimatum. The final one. Wallace looked at this man, this beautiful, angry man who was offering him a life, and he felt nothing but a crushing, unbearable weight. The inferno wasn't just around him. It was inside him, and it had burned away everything he thought he was, leaving only a terrified, empty shell.
The phone rang in Wallace's apartment. His father. Wallace let it ring.
Across town, in Bobby's office, his phone rang. His mother. He didn't answer.
In her mansion, Bella's phone rang. Both parents, conference call. She silenced it.
In her apartment, Wanda's phone lit up with her mother's name. She turned it face down.
Four phones. Four silences. Four children who'd set their lives on fire and couldn't face the ashes.
The fire was no longer smoldering. The Carter family was fully engulfed.
And tomorrow was Thanksgiving.
