Grace and I are debating whether the turkey smells weird. Gabe says it smells fine because he doesn’t like to see us fight. Five years ago on Thanksgiving, the toilets wouldn’t flush and we had to have the front yard dug up. Two years ago, the oven broke that Wednesday and we had to cook our meal at a friend’s house across town and drive it back home. 

I thought I could defeat the smell with heat and aromatics. Three hundred fifty degrees with onion, carrots, celery, fresh herbs, a little white wine. We went through the stages of grief--denial, anger, whatever else. It looked exactly like a cooked turkey. 

And, look, we are modern enough to understand that the holiday is bullshit, based on imperialism and genocide. We get that. It’s not like any of us were crying, “Thanksgiving is ruined!”  

I put the offending turkey in a plastic grocery bag, put that in a paper grocery bag, and put that in an odor-neutralizing trash bag. Of course, I put the trash bag in the trash can in the car port.

But Gabe is sulking a little. The dogs are incredulous. Grace has poured another glass of wine.

There is that raccoon. Or many raccoons—I’m no zoologist. What to do, spend the night in the car port with the baseball bat?

What’s left for dinner is sufficient. Brussel sprouts with pancetta and shallots, mashed potatoes with gravy, cornbread dressing, butternut squash with thyme. Gabe wants to talk again about our decision to have him circumcised as an infant. We cite hygiene and tradition and ask him to stop googling it. It’s feeling all about standard, if not festive.

The question remains what poisoned the turkey. The question remains does my family hate me. The question remains how to get rid of the demon in our home.