Liz's father asks Alvy.
"It just came on by itself," Alvy replies. "And Dad? Please don't get mad, but I have to show you something in Liz's closet."
Owen stays to watch Alvy lead Liz's father up the stairs. He watches as Alvy opens a loose floorboard on the left side. He watches Alvy pull out a foil-wrapped box with a card on the front that reads, to dad.
When Owen surfaces an hour later, his colleagues from the bureau are waiting for him.
"I just thought you'd like to know he got the sweater." Owen stands awkwardly in front of Liz's desk at work the night before Thanksgiving. Although Thanksgiving isn't an official holiday in Elsewhere, many Americans still celebrate it anyway.
"You went to the Well for me?"
"Your brother . . . Alvy, is it?"
Liz nods.
"Alvy says 'Happy Thanksgiving.' " Owen turns to leave.
"Wait." Liz grabs Owen's arm. "Wait a minute, you can't just go!" Liz pulls Owen into a hug.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome," Owen says gruffly.
"Did he like the sweater?" Liz asks.
"He loved it. It matched his eyes just like you said it would." As Owen says this, he realizes the sweater matched Liz's eyes also.
Liz sits down in her desk chair. "I really don't know how to thank you."
"It's just part of my job."
"It's part of your job to give my dad a sweater?"
"Well, not technically," Owen admits.
"What else did Alvy say?"
"He said you were a good sister. Actually, he said you were a good sister most of the time."
Liz laughs and grabs Owen by the hand. "Come to Thanksgiving dinner at my house. Well, it's Betty's house and my house. Betty's my grandmother."
"I ..." Owen looks away.
"Of course," Liz says, "this late, you probably have other plans."
Owen thinks a moment. He never has other plans. He typically eschews holidays like Thanksgiving, holidays spent among other people's loved ones. Even after ten years, making other plans somehow feels like betraying Emily. Normally, Owen eats alone at a diner with a holiday special. "It's a strange thing about Thanksgiving," Owen says finally. "I mean, why do so many of us still celebrate it over here anyway? Is it just habit? Are we just doing it because we always have?"
"Listen, you don't have to come if "
Owen interrupts her. "And people barely think about the whole Pilgrims-and-Indians thing over there, and it really has absolutely nothing to do with anything over here. And yet right around Thanksgiving, despite myself, I always get that Thanksgiving feeling and want to make amends and eat pie. It's conditioned in me. Why is that?"
"I know what you mean. This last September, I still wanted to buy school supplies even though I don't go to school anymore," Liz says. "Although, it's a little different with Thanksgiving. I think it's just something you can do to be like the people back home. Or to be close to the people back home. You eat pie because you know they're eating pie."
Owen nods. All this talk of pie has suddenly put Owen in the mood for just that. "So," he says casually, "what time should I get there?"
Thanksgiving
I hope you don't mind, but I've invited another person," Liz announces to Betty that night. Liz has already invited Aldous Ghent and his wife, Rowena; Thandi, her cousin Shelly, and Paco the Chihuahua; and several of her advisees at the DDA. She had also invited Curtis Jest, but he declined on the grounds that he was an Englishman and found the holiday "rather maudlin"
anyway.
"The more the merrier," says Betty. On Earth, Betty had been fond of holidays, and her fondness only intensified in the afterlife. "Who is it?" Betty asks.
"Owen Welles."
"You don't mean that awful boy who gave you all the trouble at the Well?" Betty asks. Liz's "episode with the law" (as Betty calls it) is a continuing sore spot for Betty.
"That's the one," Liz replies.
"I thought you didn't like him," Betty says, raising her left eyebrow.
"I don't, not really. But he did me a favor, and I got caught up in the moment." Liz sighs. "The truth is, Betty, I didn't imagine that he'd say yes. And then I was stuck, because I couldn't exactly uninvite him, now could I?"
"No," Betty agrees and laughs. "So, who's next, Liz? Maybe you'd like to invite a retired ax murderer?"
"I'll see if I can find one." Liz laughs, too. "Say, do we even have those here?"
As on Earth, or at least in the United States, Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday.
Aldous and Rowena Ghent arrive first, followed by Thandi and Shelly, who bring pies, and Paco in a turkey suit to commemorate the occasion.
The last to arrive is Owen Welles. He spent the morning inventing good reasons to cancel (septictank explosion? emergency at work?). At the last possible moment, he decides to go anyway.
These days, he has a bit of free time on his hands, having been suspended for a month on account of the sweater dive. He brings a potted plant for Liz's grandmother.
Aside from the presence of dead people, Thanksgiving on Elsewhere is like Thanksgiving pretty much anywhere else they celebrate it. While she loves holidays, Betty doesn't love cooking. She has the meal catered, coincidentally from the same diner Owen usually went to for the special.
Betty serves cranberry sauce (canned and homemade), potatoes (mashed and sweet), cornbread stuffing, gravy, small yeasty rolls, green bean casserole, stuffed mushrooms, Thandi and Shelly's four pies (apple, pecan, pumpkin, and sweet potato), and tofurkey (which is a vegetarian turkey substitute and definitely an acquired taste).
Betty pours large tumblers of white wine for everyone. Although Liz has had wine before, it is the first time she has ever been served wine by Betty and it makes her feel grown-up somehow.
After the wine is poured, Betty says, "I'd like to make a short toast." She clears her throat, "Well, we've all had to travel a long way to get here." She pauses.
"Hear! Hear!" Aldous says.
"I'm not finished yet," Betty says.
"Oh, excuse me," Aldous apologizes. "I thought you said a short toast."
"Not that short," Betty protests.
"And you did pause," Aldous adds.
"It was for effect!" Betty exclaims.
Rowena Ghent says, "It would have been lovely at that length, though."
"I like short toasts actually," Thandi says. "Some people go on and on. Life's short, you know."
"And death's about the same length," Owen says.
"Was that a joke?" Liz asks him.
"It was," Owen says.
"Hmm," Liz says after a moment's reflection, "not bad."
Owen winks at Liz. "If you have to think about a joke that long, it usually means "
Betty clears her throat very loudly and begins again. "We've all had to travel a long way to get here." She pauses, and no one interrupts her this time. She looks down the table at Rowena, Aldous, and Owen on her right, and Liz, Shelly, and Thandi on her left. She looks under the table, where Paco and Sadie have their own plates. Sadie's stomach growls.