To Be a Brilliant Light

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Nice spiral!" Kristoff exclaimed, throwing the football back to Max. The throw came up a little short, but Max had already moved over to grab it, plucking it out of the air. Max knew that his dad was pretty impressed with how well he was doing with sports for a ten year old kid, but he wished that his dad paid more attention to the books he was reading. He threw the ball back, and his dad caught it with what looked like ease. In reality, Kristoff was struggling. His own boy was getting better at handling the ball than he ever was. The bar wasn't very high, since he was basically sitting down all day, but it still worried him.

And this wasn't even a baseball.

It was Thanksgiving at the Rudolph household, and this year his family would be hosting the dinner. Max had never seen so much of his family together at once, or so much of his family in general at any time of day. Last year they flew to his grandparents house in Ohio for the weekend and had dinner there, and the year before that it was his uncle's turn, on his mom's side, to host. Max didn't remember much of that other than there being a lot of shouting with words he didn't know yet and him being made to go in another room while his father got really mad, but he knew now that that is what was really an 'argument' and not just the skir-mish-es his mother and father had every now and then when the two of them were both home, which was barely any of the time at all. That uncle wasn't here this year, but it was strange seeing his mom and dad's families coming together.

His grandpas sat together on the back porch and talked in hushed tones, looking at the dull gray November sky and mumbling about naus-tall-gee-ah.

"Dad," Max asked, catching the ball again and tossing it back, "How do you spell naus-tall-gee-ah?"

"Hmm." His dad caught the ball and paused to think, putting his hands on his hips and stretching the belly of his shirt just a little. "En-oh-es-tee-ae-ell-gee-eye-ae. Nostalgia." He lobbed the ball high in the air, and Max had to wait for it to come down. As he caught it, he fibbed falling over, and landed in a pile of crunchy leaves laughing. Kristoff chuckled and watched as Max lifted himself up, dusted off his jeans, and threw the ball back. Hard. It hit Kristoff in the gut and bounced off into the grass. He laughed some more, leaned over to pick it up with a grunt, and tossed it back.

"Take it easy," Kristoff said, "easy, there."

Max caught the ball with both hands and held it close to his chest. There were good, good smells coming from the kitchen window. His mom and her two sisters were in there, cooking away. Max liked his aunts but wasn't sure why one of them looked different and why both of them got somewhat mean looks from his dad's family. If he had to make an ehs-tih-may-shun, he guessed that it was adoption, or something like that. He almost wanted to ask his dad that question too, but thought maybe it wouldn't be a good idea with his grandpa's right there. They might hear him, even though he could not hear them. He had another question for his dad.

"Dad, why do we celebrate Thanksgiving?"

Kristoff was caught a little off guard by this question. Max knew the Thanksgiving story, right? Yes, they had been over it before. He swore that Max asked this when he was roughly five or so, and the explanation was satisfactory then. Even if it wasn't, they learned about it in school, or they should be. Kristoff had no idea what sort of garbage they taught in school nowadays, especially in the public school system. Anastasia had insisted they put him there instead of the private school even though they could afford the more prestigious private academies a little further away from where they lived. Something about knowing a more 'diverse' group of friends. But Kris figured that the private academy would be diverse enough.

"Well," he began, "Thanksgiving is when we celebrate the dinner that the Pilgrims had after they settled here with the Native Americans, and the Native Americans taught them how to farm the land."

Max shook his head. "That's not my question, Dad," he said, "I mean why do we celebrate it?"

Kristoff crossed his arms and Max flinched a little. Neither was sure why, exactly.

"Well, without the pilgrims, we wouldn't have America. They were the first people to settle up here, and they settled close to what would be, um, the Massachusetts Bay colony, which is where the connection most likely comes from."

"Why do we celebrate it now, Dad?" Max asked, ignoring his dad's somewhat wrong answer, "Wouldn't Columbus Day be more important for that? And weren't the Native Americans here fir-"

"Well son it's more about giving thanks as a virtue than anything. The reason we don't celebrate Columbus Day as heavily is because well I mean you get the day off from school don't you the reason is because Thanksgiving is about a virtue and ultimately virtue can be more important than the facts of things, because yes the Native Americans were here first but they didn't really make America, home of the free, they just sort of lived in tee-pees and things until Europeans came along, but none of that matters because Thanksgiving is about being thankful for what you have and not for wanting what you don't, and every place should have a day about being contented for just a little while and not complaining all the time as some people want to-to do in America today, and they just don't get the Thanksgiving spirit of coming—of getting together and being a family for a long time together, regardless of what you look like or are."

"But-"

"And aren't we all having a great time today, Max? Isn't that what Thanksgiving is about? It's about having a great time and being thankful for that, and celebrating this great country and being thankful for it, so come inside and have some pigs-in-a-blanket with me and watch the game, the Saints are playing the Cowboys. We aren't watching the Patriots."

Max watched as his dad turned around and left, opening the screen door on the back porch and stepping inside. His eyes stayed on the door for a few moments before he looked over at his grandpa's, who he saw had been staring at the two of them since his dad had gone on his long speech.

For some reason, Max felt very cold, even though it was around sixty degrees out. A light rain began to fall, and his grandparents wordlessly got up from their seats and walked inside.

Clutching his football, Max looked up at the sky, letting some of the rain fall on his face while mulling over what his dad had said, about virtue and being con-tent-ed and things like that. He wasn't entirely sure what it meant. His face went from just confused to puzzled to out and out confuzzled. And then it twisted up in a way that made some things, wet things, come loose.

Anastasia looked out the kitchen window at the backyard and wondered what her son was looking at, why his face looked so strange, and why he hadn't come inside yet. His gray sweatshirt was getting stained with raindrops, and if he didn't come in soon he'd get cold. She hadn't been able to hear her husband's words over the noise of the kitchen, but she had heard him close the door rather forcefully as he came in and asked internally what all the fuss was about. He sat down on the couch next to his own brother and dabbed at his eyes with a tissue, grabbing a little hot dog biscuit off of the orange tray and changing the station from the Patriots game to the Cowboys game, to nobody's protest. The Lions were getting whipped pretty bad.

At some point Max walked in clutching his football, kicked off his shoes, and went to sit down with his father, all without saying a word. He grabbed a blanket pig, shoved it into his mouth, and stared off into television space just in time to see a Hail Mary pass go deep down the field. Just in time to forget.