The light drizzle has become hard rain and I cover my face as I cry. Chantal reaches over to hug me. Donna comes over, too. Soon, my cousins are all embracing me and my tears are now a thunderstorm.
“Fabiola,” Matant Jo says, and I hold my tears for just a second. “My dear sister, Valerie . . . she’s strong. And strongheaded. I know she is fighting to get to you . . . to get to us. And we are fighting for her, too. So today, we are thankful for you. We are thankful for her.”
I sniff back my tears; I hold back everything because my aunt is lying. She is not fighting for her sister. If she was, my mother would be here right now. But I don’t say anything because my cousins’ arms are around me. And Pri cuts through the thickness of my anger and sorrow with one of her jokes.
“Fab, if this food isn’t good, we will straight up eat you. Just lay you down on that table and nibble on your bones like Silence of the Lambs,” Pri says.
“That’s nasty, Pri,” says Donna.
I pull out the warm turkey from the oven and place it on the table. It’s still covered in tinfoil, so I uncover it, and each one of my cousins and my aunt shriek, yell, and cry at the same time as if they’ve just seen the most terrible thing in the world.
“Fabiola! What the fuck did you do to the turkey?” Pri shouts.
Donna is covering her mouth, Chantal starts laughing, Matant Jo is shaking her head.
“What, what, what?” I ask. “What happened?”
“You weren’t supposed to chop it up and put it in sauce!” Pri cries.
“I guess we’re having Thanksgiving Haitian style,” Chantal says.
I stare at my masterpiece of a turkey—the turkey I spent hours cutting up into small pieces and frying to perfection—the giant breasts, the wings, the legs are all well easoned and resting in a nice spicy tomato sauce full of sliced peppers and onions.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Pri whines.
“Hey, sit down,” Matant Jo says. “It will be delicious. Appreciate what you have, Pri.”
“Wait a minute,” I say. “You wanted me to cook the turkey just like that? With salt and pepper and put the whole thing in the oven?”
“Well, you were supposed to add stuffing, then put it in the oven,” Matant Jo says.
“But it would be so dry. You wanted that big, dry thing just like that?”
“That’s how we do it around here, Fab,” Pri says. “Dry-ass turkey and thick-ass gravy.”
Still, my cousins eat my stewed turkey, my rice and beans, cassava fritters, fried plantains, and the best one of all, my soup joumou. By the time they’re on their second plates, the jokes start again, and the laughter, and the lightness.
Then there’s a knock at the door and my heart jumps. My cousins and I all look at one another. But Donna winks at me and she’s the first to head to the door. Pri follows her.
“My man Kasim!” Pri shouts.
And I freeze in my seat. I have a piece of turkey in my mouth and I’m not dressed properly. I don’t have on a bra and the weave in my hair is starting to look like a fuzzy hat. Matant Jo giggles. Before I even think of running upstairs to change and fix my face, Kasim is standing in the kitchen with a smile and a bouquet of flowers.
I chew really fast and stand to take my flowers, but he gives them to Matant Jo instead.
“Oh, thank you so much, Kasim,” she says, and kisses him on the cheek. “Do you have brothers? I need one for each of my girls. And a sister. A sister for Pri.” She giggles.
“Thanks, but no thanks, Ma,” Pri says, and pulls out a seat for Kasim. “Ay yo, Ka? Your girl done chopped up the turkey and threw it in sauce. Ain’t that the most Haitian shit you have ever seen in your life?”
“No,” Kasim says. “I’ve had jerk turkey on Thanksgiving with a Jamaican family I know. Shit . . . Oh, excuse me, Jo. My family boycotted Thanksgiving ’cause my father didn’t want to celebrate the white man’s holiday. So we had salmon and bean pies when I was little.”
“White man’s holiday?” Matant Jo says. “Then what’s a black man’s holiday?”
“Payday!” Pri shouts, and everyone laughs except for me and Chantal.
“You ignorant ass,” Chantal says. “What about January first, Ma? When the Haitians got their independence. First independent black nation in the world. That’s a black man’s holiday. That’s what soup joumou is for, right?”
Matant Jo shrugs and doesn’t answer. So I answer Chantal’s question. I tell them about our famous pumpkin soup and Pri reminds me that the pumpkin was supposed to be for pumpkin pie. And the sweet potato that I boiled was supposed to be for sweet potato pie.
Then Kasim says, “Dray’s mom makes the meanest sweet potato pie, right, Donna?”
Donna doesn’t answer. So Kasim keeps talking about food, his family, and Dray’s family, who is like his family.