Other Stories in this issue

Day After Thanksgiving Soup

by Debra H. Goldstein

About the Author: Judge Debra H. Goldstein is the author of Should Have Played Poker (Five Star - 2016) and 2012 IPPY Award winning Maze in Blue. Her short stories and essays have been published in numerous periodicals and anthologies, including Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. She serves on the national Sisters in Crime and Guppy boards and is an MWA member. http://www.debrahgoldstein.com http://www.debrahgoldstein.com/blog https://www.facebook.com/DebraHGoldsteinAuthor/

Excerpt

Grandpa was a bookie. He’d take odds on anything. It didn’t matter if it was a horse race, what inning someone would hit a homerun, or who would arrive last for Grandma’s traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Grandma was opposed to gambling. To say they co-existed at odds, especially as his winnings and schemes fluctuated, is putting it mildly. Maybe that’s why when Grandma died and responsibility for the family’s Thanksgiving dinner was passed to my mother and her three sisters, Grandpa decided it would be fun to establish a tontine.

His rules were simple: Grandma’s diamond ring and something special from him would go to the last sister standing. With a final nod to Grandma’s love of Thanksgiving, he declared the end of each year’s holiday dinner, which his daughters from that day would host, was the official record day for survival.

Survival was the last thing on the minds of my cousins or me. We loved our Thanksgiving get-togethers with their pick-up football, horse basketball, TV watching, and pigging out. For our parents, it was more solemn, especially the year after Grandpa died and two months later, Aunt Sally choked on a piece of turkey gristle. Somehow, that piece of gristle made its way onto one of the Thanksgiving plates she served.

Story Comments