Ambrosia

Jack Bates

Description

Inviting the reformed felon in the family to Thanksgiving dinner may not seem like a good idea, especially when the table is surrounded by valuables. Of course, sometimes the real criminal in the family may not be as obvious. This short story appears in the Thanksgiving mystery anthology THE KILLER WORE CRANBERRY.

Sujets

• Short story

Informations

• Publié par: Untreed Reads
• Date de parution: 02 novembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611870213
• Langue: English

Extrait

Table of Contents
Copyright
Ambrosia
Ambrosia
By Jack Bates
Copyright 2010 by Jack Bates
Cover Copyright 2010 by Dara England and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.
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Ambrosia
By Jack Bates
Late in her life, my grandmother could no longer afford to serve us her traditional Thanksgiving meal. Her failing health made the holiday difficult for her toact as hostess. Once my grandfather passed away, there was little doubt that the meal would have to be prepared by someone else in the family. We tried rotating it from house to house but none of us lived in the type of Victorian manor that she did. Eventually it was decided that we make the meal more like the original one, a potluck of sorts where we all brought a dish or two to pass.
The turkey would be catered. Each holiday the heads of the family households put money in a jar. The jar, in turn, was passed to the person who would be responsible for bringing the turkey the next year. Having failed at rotation of responsibilities in the past, it was decided each year, at the conclusion of the evening, a lottery worthy of Shirley Jackson would be held.
We filled a Royal Crown blue velvet bag with an appropriate number of white marbles and one black marble. White marbles represented the married couples of the extended family. There were no exceptions. If a niece married and attended Thanksgiving dinner one year, she became eligible for the Turkey Shoot as we called it. Whoever drew the black marble hosted and provided the turkey.
Like all families, mine was not devoid of the black sheep. In our case, it was my sister’s son, Danny. In and out of trouble with the law from the age of thirteen, Danny quickly graduated to convicted felon by the age of nineteen. He barely knew my grandmother. To him, she was an ancient old lady full of stories he cared nothing about and was full of bad gas from her myriad medications and juices. The year he was paroled from prison, my sister called to tell me she was bringing him to the dinner.