This is the tenth chapter of my second serial novel, The Year of the Winding Road < click here to see the main page for the novel, read the other chapters if you missed them or have no idea what this story is about.
Note to readers:
While this story does have events in it that were inspired by true life and the people who made them happen, all of it is fictional and made up. The people, aside from the popular culture figures that pepper this novel, are made up using qualities and quirks I have observed in the people I have met in real life. The places are also made up. The popular culture figures are used fictionally, though I tried to remain true to them in my writing.
The emotions though are very real. High school is a time for angst. High school is a time for finding one’s self and learning who and what one will become. I tried to keep that ribbon alive in this piece of fiction.
Thanksgiving
November seemed to fly by fast. Between church, school, working for Sheila, babysitting and Patrick, Brianna had little time for much else. It surprised her one morning when she glanced at the calendar on the wall of the kitchen and found that Thanksgiving break was upon her.
The morning of Thanksgiving started out relatively uneventful. Brianna slept in until seven that morning, dreaming of Patrick who had traveled north to visit family. She wanted to sleep in even longer but was awakened by screaming.
Annabelle was caterwauling at Charlie for some reason. Brianna could hear her little brother sniffling and trying to talk over their sister from her bed. The argument carried on for several moments before Dad could be heard bellowing from the den.
“Both of you, shut the hell up!”
Brianna sighed as she sat up and stretched. She wandered out into the hallway and cut through the kitchen, where Mom was already working on some of the preparations for dinner.
“Morning, Mom,” she said with a yawn as she pulled a can of cola from the fridge. She plopped it down on the counter and grabbed a spoon and bowl. She meandered into the dining room, where several boxes of cereal and the milk were already sitting on the table.
Charlie and Annabelle were still quipping at each other over some toy that was in one of the boxes of cereal as Brianna plopped down in one of the chairs and grabbed the cocoa flake cereal she preferred.
“It was my turn to get the toy from the box,” Charlie whined over his own bowl of soggy cereal. His eyes were red with tears.
“Well, I found it,” Annabelle retorted with a smug smile as she held fast to the toy.
She stuck her tongue out at her little brother.
“But it was mine,” Charlie mumbled, his eyes brimming with tears.
Brianna looked at the box that held the toy and thought for a moment. She looked at Annabelle.
“Hey, Annabelle, what toy was it?” she asked after she had chewed her mouthful of cereal.
Annabelle proudly held up the toy. It was a superhero cartoon character from one of Charlie’s favorite shows.
“Cool. Can I see it?”
Annabelle handed it over to Brianna, ignoring Charlie’s protestations. Brianna smiled as she looked it over.
“That’s cool,” she said, smoothly sliding it over to Charlie with a smile.
Annabelle began to sputter.
“Dad!” she squawked. “Brianna took my toy!”
Brianna heard Dad throw the paper aside and get up from his chair in the den. He marched through the living room to the dining room. He towered over the table, giving all three kids seated an angry stare Brianna had long dubbed his “death stare.”
“I already told you all to stop. Give her back whatever she’s yelling you took, Brianna!”
“It’s Charlie’s toy though,” Brianna replied. “Mom bought the box of cereal and said he could have the toy already.”
“But I found it,” Annabelle clamored. “It’s mine! Finders Keepers!”
“Give the damn thing back to Annabelle!” Dad commanded.
“But it doesn’t belong to her, Dad!” Brianna yelled. “Mom told Charlie that he could have it.”
Dad took a step towards her and his face was even darker with anger.
“Are you talking back to me, young lady?” he snarled.
“No,” Brianna said softly, trying to keep her voice from quivering as tears burned her eyes. “I’m just trying to let you know that Annabelle isn’t right on this.”
“Just shut up,” Dad spat. “You’re all driving me crazy this morning!”
“Russell!”
Mom stood in the door of the kitchen, her hands holding the paper towel she used to dry her hands. She looked at Dad angrily and huffed.
“Charlie and Brianna are correct. The toy does belong to Charlie. I bought that cereal so he could have it. Annabelle doesn’t even like that cartoon. She’s just trying, as usual, to push everyone’s buttons.”
She glared at her younger daughter with a look that told everyone she didn’t want to hear another word. Dad backed down and looked sheepish as he stepped back away from Brianna.
Mom finally sighed.
“Now, can we please have just one morning where we aren’t screaming bloody murder at each other?”
She glared sharply at each of them before turning to go back to the kitchen.
Annabelle glowered at Charlie and Brianna. She went back to eating her cereal, scowling at her older sister in between bites. Charlie admired his new toy as he ate happily and read the back of the cereal box. Brianna knew it wouldn’t be long before that new toy would end up forgotten in pieces in the bottom of Charlie’s toy box. But for now, it made him happy.
Mom called from the kitchen.
“Brianna, when you are done eating breakfast, I could use your help getting things situated for dinner.”
Brianna sighed as she shoveled another spoonful of cocoa flavored cereal into her mouth. So much for getting a day off, she mused.
After helping getting everything prepped for dinner, the rest of the morning and early afternoon were spent just chilling around the house. Mom and Dad watched football on the television in the living room while Matt and Charlie played video games on the television in the den. Annabelle curled up on the living room loveseat and was watching the football game as well but was also playing video games on her handheld.
Brianna worked on homework in her bedroom. She had closed the door so she could listen to her music while she worked. After completing what she could, since her math confused her, she curled up with one of the books she checked out of the library and read for the rest of the afternoon, only getting up to help Mom as needed with dinner or do any chores.
Mom was nice enough to knock on the door before opening it and requesting aid instead of yelling from various parts of the house like her dad would have done.
The family ate dinner in the late afternoon, as was customary since they were all expected to help with serving at the soup kitchen at their church that night. Mom outdid herself as usual. There was a turkey and homemade dressing, candied sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, homemade cranberry sauce, and rolls. Dad contributed to the dinner by making his famous coleslaw, since Mom couldn’t seem to replicate the taste of it any time she tried.
Brianna ate copious amounts of everything except the candied sweet potatoes, since she didn’t like them. Her stomach felt as stuffed as a football when dinner was done and she groaned from eating too much.
Everyone was expected to help put the leftovers away. Brianna knew that was what they would be eating for the next few days, but that was why Mom always seemed to out-do herself on the meal at Thanksgiving. She had the weekend off, just as the rest of them did. She wanted to take it easy.
There were a couple of arguments over what was and was not fair while the four kids cleaned the kitchen after dinner. Mom had made it their job, since she had done all the work getting dinner ready. Dad also argued that since he made the coleslaw, his part of the chores were done too. Brianna wanted to protest and say she helped with dinner all day long, especially since she had already washed dishes once that day, but she knew better. Her protest would have fallen on deaf ears. So she organized the dishes in the dishwasher as Annabelle rinsed them off.
“You’re going too slow!” Annabelle grumbled as Brianna tried to make the last plate fit in the bottom rack.
They were using the good dishes, so Brianna was trying to be careful.
“Give me a second,” Brianna said as she put the plate on the counter and rearranged a few glasses that were also in the bottom rack. “It’s not like I can magically make this thing bigger!”
Charlie was feeding the dogs, for they were getting a bit of turkey meat mixed in with their dog food. Badger wagged his tail happily while Wolfie sat and stared at Charlie’s actions, drooling a bit with anticipation.
Even Puck got a bit of turkey mixed into his cat food. He ate some before snubbing the rest as he usually did.
Matt was trying to figure out how to put all the containers laden with food into the refrigerator, for it was already groaning from all the groceries it contained. He had to rearrange the containers four times before everything fit.
“Ta da, I am the Tetris master!” he exclaimed as he turned around. “You guys aren’t done yet?”
Brianna glared at him as she tried to rearrange the bottom rack yet again. Annabelle had waited until that moment to hand her yet another plate, despite the dishes being stacked so that they could easily arrange them in the dishwasher. She wanted to yell at her little sister but decided against it. She didn’t want to cause another fight.
Finally, everything either fit in the dishwasher or was waiting to be hand-washed. Brianna was left to wash dishes while Charlie took out the trash. Matt had disappeared into his room and Annabelle had wandered into the living room to watch whatever was on the television.
Dad came into the kitchen.
“How come the table didn’t get wiped down?” he asked Brianna, who was arms deep in dishwater.
“I don’t know,” she said as she put another dish into the second part of the sink to rinse. “I didn’t wipe it down.”
“Exactly,” Dad said. “You need to wipe down the table.”
“I am kind of busy at the moment, Dad,” she said with a huff that mimicked Mom’s. “Can’t one of the others do it?”
Dad scoffed.
“Don’t get snippy with me, young lady.”
Brianna guessed Mom had heard the conversation from the living room, because Annabelle stomped into the kitchen and grabbed one of their wash rags. Shoving Brianna at the sink, she dunked the rag into the wash water and then wrung it out. She huffed on her way back out to the dining room.
A few minutes later, she practically threw the rag at Brianna. It landed with a huge splash in the sink water, drenching the front of Brianna’s sweatshirt..
“Ann-A-Belle!” she screamed in annoyance as she nearly dropped the big serving platter.
“Why are you yelling?” Mom asked, coming into the kitchen to get a soda out of the fridge.
Brianna looked down at her shirt after she put the platter up on the drain board to dry. “Look at me! She just threw the rag at me. It hit the water and made it splash all over me.”
Mom sighed as she came over to the sink. She knew Brianna hated wearing wet clothes.
“Go change. I’ll finish the dishes. Looks like you got most of them anyway.”
Brianna went into her room and pulled off her sweatshirt and the tee-shirt underneath, as it was just as wet. Tossing them into the laundry basket, she got down a sweater from the shelf in her closet and pulled it on.
Dad was storming down the hall when she reached the door of her room, intending to go help Mom finish up the cleaning.
“Why is your mother washing the rest of the dishes?” he ordered, glaring at her.
“Annabelle got my sweatshirt and shirt soaked,” she stammered.
“I told her to go change, Russ!” Mom commanded from the kitchen. “Don’t get mad at her. Be mad at your younger daughter for being as dramatic as ever.”
Dad looked apologetic.
“Oh, sorry,” he said. He turned and walked down the hall again as Mom came to the door of the kitchen. She shared a look with Brianna as she shook her head.
“He’s always going to take her side, isn’t he?” Brianna asked softly with a slight tinge of frustration in her voice.
Mom looked at her sharply and huffed. “Don’t start. Not today. You know he loves you all equally.” She sighed. “It’s just he was always on the road when you and Matt were little. You know that.”
She sighed as she died a few of the dishes for Mom that didn’t fit in the drain board. She then walked down the hallway to the living room, where the rest of the family were gathered watching television. A Thanksgiving Day cartoon was on. Brianna plopped down on the couch and accepted attention from Wolfie as Puck came to crawl into her lap. She fussed with them both as she watched the show.
When the cartoon was over, it was time to get ready to go to church to help serve dinner there. Brianna spent most of the evening bussing table at the soup kitchen. As people finished eating, she helped to clear the tables, taking the dishes to the kitchen as Melissa wiped tables with cleaner and rags. Others reset the tables with new silverware as people came in.
Dad and a couple of the other men were rinsing the dishes Brianna and a couple others brought in. They used the sprayers to hose them down in the giant sinks before loading them into the industrial dishwashers to clean them.
Matt was helping dry and stack the dishes when the dishwashers were done, preparing them for new faces as needed while Mom helped to actually serve the food, dishing potatoes, dressing, turkey and green beans into serving dishes that were carried to each table to be served family-style. Charlie and Annabelle were helping serve dessert, pushing a cart laden with slices of several kinds of pie around the gathering hall and offering them to each person that was eating. Whipped cream was served as wanted as well.
The serving of dinner lasted for a little over two hours. There was some food left over, which was boxed up to be taken to a nearby shelter by one of the families who were volunteering. If anyone came in looking to be fed as the volunteers were cleaning up, they would get one of these boxes.
As tables cleared and the last stragglers left, Brianna wiped the tables down again as some of the other volunteers vacuumed and broke down tables that were no longer needed. Mom, Dad, and Matt were helping to clean the kitchen and finish the dishes. Annabelle and Charlie were playing some sort of tag game with some of the other volunteers’ children in the already cleared and cleaned area of the hall. Brianna felt annoyed that her youngest siblings got out of doing work, but the rational part of her knew that there wasn’t enough work for them to do.
As volunteers began to trickle out, Dad called into the hall to the kids to get their things. Brianna slipped into the pantry area of the kitchen, where they had left their things. She picked up her coat and her mini-backpack and listened to her mother’s conversation with the others.
“Thank you for all your help tonight, Washington family!” the head volunteer called. “I am always thankful when I see your names on the sign-up list! As usual, you were awesome tonight!”
“You are very welcome, Deb,” Mom said as she pulled her coat on. She retrieved her lip balm from her pocket and applied it. Popping the cap back on, she smiled graciously. “We are thankful for the opportunity to be a part of this every year as well.”
All of them chatted good-naturedly in the van as Dad pulled out of the parking lot at church. It was dark when Dad pulled the van out of the church parking lot and the entire family was tired. As they drove home, Brianna watched the familiar neighborhood fly by in the furthest seat.
“Do you know what I think is pretty cool?” Dad asked, raising his voice so that even Brianna and Matt could hear him clearly from the back of the van.
“What?” Charlie returned as Matt sighed.
Even though she couldn’t see him in the darkness, Brianna knew Matt was rolling his eyes. Her mouth twitched into a half-smile because she knew Dad was about to launch into one of the speeches that he thought was inspiring.
Dad took a deep breath.
“I think it’s pretty cool that you all jump in and help with this every year. Some kids would think it sucks to have to give up their Thanksgiving evening to serve others, but you all do it without complaint. I am very proud of all my kids for that reason!”
Brianna smiled, even though she knew it was coming.
Matt had leaned over and in the flash of a passing light, Brianna could see he had a grin on his face. He spoke so softly that she could barely hear him.
“I’d complain about having to help, but I know that it wouldn’t do any good.”
Brianna blinked.
“You don’t like helping?” she asked. She kept her voice as soft as his on purpose. The last thing either of them needed or wanted was Annabelle tattling on them.
He sighed. “I do like helping,” he said. “But we’re kind of forced into helping with this every year. We aren’t really given a choice on the matter, so why bother complaining? Besides, it makes Dad feel better to compare us to these non-existent other kids, so there is that.”
Brianna turned her head to watch out of the window again as Dad finished driving home. She was looking forward to homemade pumpkin pie with plenty of whipped cream and homemade hot chocolate with plenty of miniature marshmallows. While they had their dessert, the family would be congregating in the living room, watching Mom’s favorite Christmas movie. It was how they let go of Thanksgiving and began to kick off Christmas on this road of life. And while the road seemed to be winding, Brianna thought she was feeling fine.
Click here to read the next chapter – Family Dynamics (Live on 8 November 2025)
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction written by K. S. Wood, and thus is copyrighted 2025. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author. All rights reserved.If you enjoyed this chapter, please share it with others. Every other Saturday, there will be a new chapter posted for your reading pleasure. The entire story can be found on this page – The Year of the Winding Road
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