It started the week before last, an onslaught of emails reminding me of savings to be had. “Black Friday Week Deals…Cyber Monday Sale.” I had forgotten about Black Friday and had slept through the announcement of it growing into a weeklong phenomenon followed by a Monday of online shopping.

The streets are empty on Sunday. The stores are closed. There is a calm in the inactivity, a rest. Sundays have the stillness and quiet of winters. A winter Sunday is doubly quiet, doubly restful.

“And God be praised we had a good increase… Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.” – Edward Winslow, Mourt’s Relation

“Turn right here,” brain said. I was surprised to remember the hour-long drive to my aunt’s house and the dead-end suburban street she lives on. Her phone number was still lodged in my mind in case my inner compass failed.
The house had changed since my uncle died, but signs of him, like the ornamental whiskey bottles and double-barreled shotgun, lined the basement walls and filled some innate need for nostalgia.
“You little Peckah head,” Uncle Peter would have said had I walked through the front door without my own supply of drinks to accompany the turkey dinner. A game of spades would ensue in the kitchen where Jesus Christ would be summoned in vain for having some part in a bad hand or because Dubba and Dad talked across the table. Cards aren’t played at Thanksgiving anymore.
Dubba, being the patriarch at the head of the dinner, led us in a quiet and brief prayer before the table took on a frenzied chattering of “pass this” and “pass that.”
Dubba says little since his stroke, but his eyes speak restlessly of thoughts untold.