The Fifth Part of Chapter 10: Thanksgiving

Upon arriving home, they deposited their bags in the bedroom and went to Ryan and Patricia’s house for Thanksgiving, which had a much more intimate atmosphere than Margaret’s house, for three reasons: their house was smaller and cosier, their house was older and had a century’s worth of accumulated character, and lastly, there were no children in the family. Ryan and Patricia both wanted that last aspect changed, but so far were luckless: Katherine, after her divorce, had decided that she didn’t particularly want children, and Clarissa and James didn’t have any children as of yet.

Ryan and Patricia, unlike Margaret and Hyram, were much warmer in attitude to their children; Patricia was particularly doting, and looked fondly at James as he helped himself to extra gravy. “How were Margaret and Hyram?”

“They were all right, but they’re a bit fussy. Well, Margaret in particular was fussy. Their house was almost absurdly clean; it looked something like a museum,”

“Mom and dad can always find something about which to complain; she criticised Jimmy’s waistline, and I can’t see anything wrong with it,”

“Mike was kind of like that, except he wasn’t too fussy in his complaining; it was simply that anything I did was open to criticism. Hence the divorce,”

Patricia made a face at this; she would have preferred Katherine to be more prudent in her choice of men, and she, for one, saw through all of Mike’s façades after only a week of knowing him, whereas it had taken Katie five years to get the divorce, and she simply didn’t see what, if anything, this had to do with her decision against children. “So, are you seeing anyone interesting, Katie dear?” she asked. To be fair, the question was loaded, and Katherine was in no hurry to answer, or solve it.

“No, singlehood appeals to me. I can do whatever I want, and there’s nobody to criticise it.”

“Oh, I think it’s all a question of finding the right person; that’s the way it was with Patty and I. We met in university, and we decided we loved each other. It’s been forty years now.”

The remainder of the dinner passed amicably, and James and Clarissa talked about what was going on at their respective offices.

“So, a lot of people are nervous about layoffs, and corporate-speak isn’t helping. You know, when someone says ‘work smarter, not harder’, ‘we need to consolidate’, ‘rationalise the staff’, and all that. Our office isn’t like that, thank goodness; Maurice doesn’t go so much for the corporate doublespeak: he simply goes right out and says what’s what.”

Ryan, upon hearing the phrases repeated, recalled the Dilbert comics that ridiculed them so well. At eight, after dinner and apple pie, it was time to leave.

“Thank you for the dinner, Ryan,”

“Thank you, dad,”

“It was very nice to see all three of you again. Good luck with raising a family,” said Patricia; she really wanted to see grandchildren; so did Ryan, but he kept his sentiments to himself.

Upon arriving home, James asked, “So, what do you think? Should we get busy and start a family?”

Clarissa laughed at this; “we’ll see,” she said.

Previous Next