At the house there had been a debate about cranberry sauce. Gary's mother had slaved over a beautiful tureen of homemade cranberry sauce, the fresh and fancy whole-berry kind, but it was agreed that the store-bought, canned, jellied variety was best: dump that sucker head-first onto a plate and serve it up in slices cut along the grooves left by the can.
They had all stood together in the kitchen, laughing about the cranberry sauce. It was a moment of warmth and levity, and it filled Ariel with the sort of joy that she hadn't felt at the holidays since she was a child. For the first time, she truly felt part of Gary's messy, garrulous family; she felt infused with Thanksgiving spirit; she took the rush of good feeling as a sign that soon, very soon, she might actually be a part of Gary's family-a proposal, a ring, tears and laughter by the holiday firelight, the whole thing. Ariel felt that things were falling into place just as they should.
She was giddy as she backed out of Gary's parents' driveway, headed for the neighborhood Kroger. She had volunteered to fetch the canned cranberry sauce and was glad for the chance to be in the cocoon of the car, alone with the radio and the graying holiday sky and the silent snowflakes that were just beginning to gather on her windshield. She was glad for the chance to be alone with the warmth of what she felt toward Gary, his family, the day. Her head was actually buzzing with the joy of it all as the electronic door at Kroger ushered her in with a great whoosh of heated air, as the lone cashier waved at her and warned that the store was about to close for the holiday, that it was quittin' time, turkey time, time to head out.
There were only a few other shoppers in the aisles, and Ariel felt bound by goodwill to each of them: Here they were, bundled up and breathless and hurrying to gather the last few things they would need to enjoy a meal with the people they loved, with the people whom they had perhaps traveled great distances to see. For Ariel, the idea of holiday travel added to the romance of the moment: Outside, the world was growing still and quiet, when only the night before the freeways and airports had been clogged and overflowing with the dizzy storm of people going from one place to another.
The interruption of the daily routine was what thrilled Ariel most about holidays, just as she was now thrilled to have left Gary's parents' fragrant, noisy kitchen for this private moment in the cold, in the Kroger, in the swiftly gathering snow.
Ariel took it as a sign that there was only one can of cranberry sauce left on the shelf. It was dented and the top was circled with rust, but she snatched it up as though it were a prize, a gift that she would bring to the others around the table. Later, at family dinners down the road, Ariel and Gary would tell their children the story of the last rusty can of cranberry sauce, the story of the beginning of the Canned Cranberry Sauce Tradition. It would be something to tell.
The cashier handed Ariel her change and wished her well. Happy Thanksgiving, she said, and as she said them the words seem to hang in the air, full of meaning and truth. The cashier smiled at Ariel and it struck her that she would remember him, that passing stranger's face, long after she had forgotten the faces of many, many people more familiar to her, more dear. As she passed through the door she turned to wave at the man, and because her body was turned she almost didn't see the figure walking toward her, then passing on her left and carrying with him a gust of clean, cold Thanksgiving air.
Ariel? he said. It was a question.
It was as if the man's voice, all by itself, had knocked the air from Ariel's lungs before she was able to turn and recognize his face. Ariel had not thought of the man in a very long time, but for a long time, years, even, she had thought of him daily. For years, the thing that most thrilled her about holiday travel was the thought that any one of the planes and trains and cars might be carrying him, this very body, this very face, back to the town he had left so long ago, back to the town where she lived and had always lived, where she knew without question that she would keep on living, happily, until the day she died.
Ariel raised her plastic Kroger bag by way of explanation: cranberry sauce.
Happy Thanksgiving, the man said, waving hello and goodbye. Ariel could not bear to watch as he disappeared into the store. By the time Ariel reached her car, the windshield was covered in a fine dusting of snow, and the can in the bag next to her on the passenger seat seemed like a joke, a prank, a tired old story that everyone had already heard too many times before.
Sarah Combs handles marketing and communications for the Carnegie Center, where she also leads fiction workshops for adults and young people.