Ruby had been a family for eight years. But the moment her life became messy, the moment she might need support instead of being able to provide entertainment value, Vivien had taken her off the list.
After hanging up, I sat in the dark kitchen for a long time. The list of names blurred in front of me when the tears I had been holding for hours finally came. But it wasn’t just tears of frustration over the impossible task ahead. They were tears of recognition, because I saw myself in Ruby’s situation. I saw what happened when you stopped being useful to Vivien. When you stopped being the perfect daughter-in-law who could make impossible dinners and never complain. When you became more trouble than you were worth. Cooking and recipes
I was a bad Thanksgiving away from not being invited from my own life.
On Tuesday morning, the grocery store at 6 a.m. was a desert of fluorescent lights and empty aisles. I had been there since the opening, my cart brimming with ingredients for a meal that seemed more impossible with each item. I added three bucks, two hams, pounds and pounds of vegetables I would need to prepare, cut and cook in submission.
The total of the box caused my hands to shook as I slid our credit card, knowing that Hudson would see the charge later and probably comment on the expense.
Mrs. Suzanne next door was in line behind me with a single bag of coffee and some muffins.
“Have a big dinner this year?” He asked, looking at my overflowing car with concern.
“Thanksgiving for thirty-two,” I replied, trying to sound casual about it.
His eyes opened.
“Thirty-two? By yourself?”
“My husband will help,” I said automatically, though the words tasted like lies.
She looked at me for a long time, and I could see the compassion that crawled in her expression.
“Honey, that doesn’t help. That’s watching someone drown while standing on the dock.”
His words followed me home and resounded in my head when I started the preparation work. I presented ingredients in all the available counter spaces, transforming our kitchen into something that looked more like a commercial food preparation facility than a home. Cooking and recipes
By noon, he had been working for six hours straight and had barely made a dent in what had to be done. My back hurt, my feet were beating, and I hadn’t eaten anything but a handful of cookies.
That’s when Hudson went into the kitchen, still into pajamas, cup of coffee in his hand.
“Wow, you’re really doing your best this year,” he said, examining the chaos. “The smell is already good.”
I was up to the elbow in the turkey filling, with my hands covered with a mixture of breadcrumbs, celery and raw egg.
“Can you help me get this into the bird? I can’t handle it alone.”
He looked at his watch.
“Actually, I promised the guys I would meet them for a quick round of golf. Pre-vacation tradition, you know. But I will have a lot of time to help with the heavy lifting tomorrow.”
I looked at him.
“Golf today?”
“Just nine holes, maybe eighteen if we’re doing a good time. You know how it is.” Schedules and calendars
He was already heading towards the door.
“You have everything under control here anyway. You’re like a machine when it comes to these things.”
Like a machine.
Words hit me harder than they should. Machines don’t get tired. Machines don’t need help. Machines have no feelings that can be hurt by casual firing.
He was gone before he could respond, leaving me with only thirty-two people of food and the growing understanding that he was invisible in my own home.
The afternoon dragged by a plummeting, seasoning and precooking of what could be prepared in advance. Each surface of the kitchen was covered with dishes at various stages of completion. The refrigerator was so full that I had to play Tetris with containers just to fit everything.
Around 5:00 p.m., Vivien called.
“Just reviewing the preparations, dear. How are things going?”
I looked around me at the disaster zone that was my kitchen, to my hands that were raw and bleeding from constant washing and preparation of food, in the mountain of dishes that had already accumulated. Anatomy
“Okay,” I said. “Everything is fine.”
“Wonderful. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the Sanders boy has a severe nut allergy. You will need to make sure that none of the dishes contain nuts or have been contaminated. It is a life-threatening situation if there is any exposure.”
A nut allergy for a six-year-old girl she mentioned now, the day before dinner, after she had already prepared three dishes containing almonds or nuts.
“What dishes exactly should I have…”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You are very good at managing these details. See you tomorrow, dear.”
He hung up before he could ask any of the dozens of questions that immediately flooded my mind.
I stood in my kitchen, surrounded by the evidence of twelve hours of non-stop work, and felt something in my chest. It doesn’t break, that would come later, just crack, like the first fissure in a prey that has been holding too much pressure for too long. Cooking and recipes
That night, Hudson came home with the smell of beer and golf course grass, cheerful of his day of freedom while I was trapped in the hell of preparation.
“How was the kitchen, baby? Everything ready for tomorrow’s marathon session?”
Estaba sentado en la mesa de la cocina, lo que finalmente me permitió descansar por primera vez desde el amanecer. Todo mi cuerpo me dolía y no había tenido una comida real en todo el día.
“There’s a problem with the menu,” I said quietly. “Three of the dishes have nuts, and apparently the child Sanders has a severe allergy.”
Hudson shrugged.
“So make different versions of those dishes. There is no big deal.”
There’s no big deal. Three completely different dishes that require completely new ingredients and preparation time that I didn’t have, plus everything else I was already trying to accomplish. Cooking and recipes
“Hudson, I need help. Real help. Don’t just carve the turkey. I need you to cook some of these dishes.”
He seemed really surprised by the petition.
“Pero eres mucho mejor cocinando que yo. Y mamá solicitó específicamente tu cazuela de judías verdes y tu relleno. La gente viene esperando tu comida”.
“Entonces tal vez la gente también pueda venir esperando tu comida”, me quedé, mi agotamiento finalmente rompió mi cortesía cuidadosamente mantenida.
La agudeza en mi voz parecía asustarlo. Habíamos estado casados durante cinco años y nunca había usado ese tono con él antes.
“Okay, you’re obviously stressed. Look, I’ll definitely help you tomorrow. I promise. But tonight, I’m pretty defeated by golf and I have that early meeting that I need to be fresh for.”
“¿Qué reunión temprana?”
“Tomorrow. Thanksgiving. Conference call with the Singapore office, time zone. But it’ll only be an hour, maybe two. I’ll finish long before people start coming.” Thanksgiving
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Another thing I hadn’t mentioned, another way I would handle the morning race completely alone.
I looked at my husband, I really looked at him and saw a stranger. When had you become someone who could see me work until exhaustion and feel no obligation to help? When had I become someone whose struggles were so invisible that they were not even recorded as real problems?
“I’m going to bed,” I said finally.
“Good idea. Get some rest. A great day tomorrow.”
While I was in bed that night looking at the ceiling, I did math in my head. If I got up at 3:30 a.m., I could have the turkeys in the oven at 4:00. That would give me ten hours to prepare seven side dishes, make fresh breads, prepare four desserts and create nut-free alternatives for the three dishes that were now off limits.Cook and recipes
Ten hours for what should have been twenty hours of work. Mathesmatics didn’t work. The timeline was impossible. And yet, somehow, he was expected to make it happen because I always did.
That’s when I realized the most devastating truth of all. I had trained them to treat me this way. Every time I had made an impossible dinner, every time I smiled and said “of course” when they asked me to do the unreasonable, every time I apologized for things that were not my fault, I had taught them that my boundaries didn’t matter. It had made me indispensable and invisible at the same time.
I set my alarm at 3:30 a.m. and closed my eyes, though the dream seemed as impossible as the task that awaited me in a few hours.
Wednesday, 2:47 a.m.
I woke up to my alarm, my body shook awake from a dream where I was running through an endless kitchen while the faceless people shouted orders at me. The house was completely dark and silent, except for Hudson’s constant breathing beside me.
For a moment, I lay there in the dark, and a strange thought crossed my mind. What if I didn’t get up? What if I stay in bed and let the alarm ring? What if thirty-two people showed up at an empty table and had to set up their own dinner for once?
The idea was so strange, so completely contrary to everything I had been conditioned to do, that it almost made me laugh. Almost.
But then I imagined Vivien’s face when he came to chaos instead of perfection. I pictured Hudson’s confusion when he realized he wasn’t going to fix everything like I always did. I imagined thirty-two people who had not made alternative plans, who had brought nothing to contribute, standing looking at each other.
And for the first time in years, I felt more than afraid of a family reunion. I felt curious.
I got out of bed without waking up Hudson and quilted down into the kitchen. In the dark of the morning, surrounded by the evidence of yesterday’s preparation work, I allowed myself to really think about the unthinkable.
What if I go?
Not forever, not dramatically. I just left. I got in my car and drove somewhere else. Let them take care of a meal without me.
The idea was terrifying and stimulating at the same time. Never, in thirty-one years of life, would just not show me something I was expected to do. I would never disappoint anyone. I would never put my own needs before the convenience of another person.
I made a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table, looking at the guest list that was still where Vivien had placed it two days ago. Thirty-two names. Thirty-two people who expected me to sacrifice my sleep, my health, my sanity to provide them with a perfect meal while providing nothing in return, except criticism if things were not exactly right.
I picked up my phone and, on impulse, opened a travel website, just to look, just to see what was possible.
El primer resultado hizo que mi aliento se reprimiera. “Última escapada de Acción de Gracias a Hawai. Asientos limitados disponibles. Salga temprano el jueves por la mañana. Devolución el domingo”.Acción de Gracias
He had always wanted to go to Hawaii, but Hudson preferred destinations with good golf courses and business networking opportunities.
“Hawaii es solo playas y trampas para turistas”, siempre había dicho. “¿Qué haríamos allí todo el día?”
I clicked on the ad before I could talk about myself. The flight departed at 4:15 a.m., almost exactly the time it was supposed to start cooking. The price was high, much higher than Hudson would approve for a spontaneous vacation. But it was also our money. Our joint account to which he had contributed as much as he did, even though he did more, and somehow gave him veto power over major purchases.
I stared at the booking screen for a long time, my finger floating on the “select flight” button.
¿Qué clase de persona abandona a treinta y dos personas en Acción de Gracias?
But another voice in my head, quieter but somehow stronger, asked: What kind of person does an individual expect to handle the thirty-two-person dinner without help? Eat and Drink
I thought of Ruby, uninvited from a family she had been a part of for eight years because her divorce made her uncomfortable. I thought Hudson would dismiss my requests for help as irrational lawsuits rather than desperate pleas. I thought of Vivien by casually mentioning a life-threatening allergy the day before dinner, as if my ability to completely restructure the menu overnight was a fact.
I thought about who I used to be before I became the person who always said yes, that always made it work, that I always apologized for not being perfect enough.
Before I could change my mind, I clicked on “select flight.”
The following screen asked the passenger for information. I wrote my name, my date of birth, my information. Just mine. A match of one.
There was something powerful about seeing my name on that booking form on its own. Isabella Fosters. Not Hudson’s wife. Not Vivien’s daughter-in-law. Just me.
I entered our credit card information and clicked on “book now” before I could think too much about what I was doing.
The confirmation email came immediately. Flight 442 to Maui, departure 4:15 a.m., gate B12. Recommended check-in two hours earlier, which meant I had to leave for the airport at 1:30 a.m. Flights
In ten hours, you should take the first turkey out of the oven. Instead, it would be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean watching the sun rise from thirty thousand feet.
Understanding what I had just done hit me like a physical force. Actually, I was going to do this. He was going to disappear on Thanksgiving morning and let them figure out their own dinner.
Part of me hoped to feel guilt or panic or the need to cancel the flight and return to my preparations. Instead, I felt something I hadn’t experienced in years.
Anticipation.
I spent the rest of the early hours of the morning moving around the house like a ghost, packing a small suitcase with summer clothes that I hadn’t worn in months. Swimsuits that had been buried in my drawer. The summer dresses Hudson always said were too casual for the places we went together.
As I packed up, I found myself thinking about every Thanksgiving I had orchestrated over the years. All hours of preparation, stress, exhaustion. Every time I had eaten my own cold dinner because I had been too busy serving everyone else. All the compliments that had gone to Vivien for “such charming meeting host” while I remained invisible in the kitchen. Thanksgiving
I was folding a yellow summer dress when Hudson’s phone rang on his night table. It was 3:00 a.m. Who called at 3:00 a.m. unless it was an emergency?
I walked closer to listen.
“Hudson, it’s your mother. I know it’s early, but I couldn’t sleep. I’m very worried about tomorrow.”
Even through the phone, I could hear the anxiety in Vivien’s voice.
“Mom, what’s wrong? Is everything okay?”
“I’m still thinking about the Sanders allergy. What if Isabella does not properly handle the issue of cross-contamination? What if something happens to that kid in our house? Responsibility alone…”
My hands clenched in fists. She was calling at 3:00 a.m. to worry about my competition, not the impossible task I had assigned or if I might need support.
“She will take care of it, Mom. She always does. Isabella is great with these things.”
“What if you don’t have enough care? What if she’s overwhelmed? Thirty-two people are enough, even for someone as capable as Isabella.”
Now he acknowledged that it was a lot. Now, when it was too late to change something, when I had already spent two days in the preparation of hell.
“If you were so worried about the numbers, why didn’t you mention it when you invited everyone?” Hudson’s voice carried an advantage of irritation, but it was aimed at his mother for waking him up, not because of the impossible situation she had created.
“Well, I guess I could call some people and disinvite them.”
– At 3:00 the night before, Mom?
“Let Isabella take care of it. You’re probably cooking anyway already.” Cooking and recipes
I looked out into the kitchen, where I should actually be cooking, where the impossible marathon that would consume the next twelve hours of my life should begin. Instead, I closed the suitcase and carried it quietly down.
I left a note at the kitchen counter next to Vivien’s guest list. I kept it simple.
“Hudson, something came up and I had to get out of town. You’ll have to handle Thanksgiving dinner. The groceries are in the fridge. Isabella.
I didn’t apologize. I didn’t explain it to you. I offered no suggestions on how to save food or provide detailed instructions. For once in my life, I just said the facts and left them to discover the rest.
While carrying my suitcase in my car, I saw myself in the rearview mirror. Somehow I looked different. Not only tired, I looked tired for years. He seemed determined.
The trip to the airport was surreal. The roads were empty, except for some other first travelers and night shift workers on their way home. I had driven these same streets thousands of times, but never at this hour, never for this reason, ever with this feeling of getting out of my normal life completely. Flights
At the airport, recording the flight seemed to cross a threshold that could not uncross. The door agent, a woman my age with kind eyes, looked at my ticket.
“Maui. Good Thanksgiving plan. Get away from the family chaos?”
I almost laughed at how perfectly I had summarized it.
“Something like that.”
“Smart woman. I’m working today, but if I could afford to escape to Hawaii instead of dealing with my mother-in-law’s comments about my casserole, I would do it in the blink of an eye.”
While waiting for boarding, I turned my phone in airplane mode without checking the messages. I didn’t want to see Hudson’s confusing texts when he woke up and found my note. I didn’t want to see Vivien’s panic when he came to chaos rather than perfection.
The door agent’s voice creaked through the speakers.
“Ahora abordando el vuelo 442 a Maui. Bienvenido a bordo”. Vuelos
While walking through the airway, I realized that this was the first time in five years that I was going somewhere that Hudson had not approved, somewhere Vivien had not investigated, somewhere I had chosen completely for me.
The flight attendant welcomed me on board with a smile that seemed to recognize something on my face: the gaze of someone who was free.
As I settled into my window seat and watched the ground crew prepare for the exit, I thought about what was happening at home. Hudson would wake up in a few hours to find an empty kitchen and a note that would change everything. Thirty-two people would arrive in ten hours waiting for a party, and there would be no one there to provide it.
Por primera vez en mi vida adulta, su problema no era mi problema a resolver.
The plane pulled away from the door just as the first signs of dawn appeared on the horizon. As we got up to the sky, I pressed my face against the window and watched my old life disappear under the clouds. Doors and windows
Thursday, 7:23 a.m.
Hudson’s perspective.
Hudson Fosters woke up to the alarm with the lazy satisfaction of someone who had no idea that his world was about to implode. He turned around, hoping to find Isabella’s side of the empty bed as usual on Thanksgiving morning. He was always awake before dawn, making magic happen in the kitchen.
Pero algo se sentía diferente. La casa estaba muy tranquila. A las 7:00 a.m. del Día de Acción de Gracias, el olor a pavo asado generalmente llenaba cada habitación, y el sonido del caos orquestado de Isabella en la cocina servía como una banda sonora reconfortante para su lenta rutina de la mañana.
En cambio, silencio.
He padded the ground floor in his boxers, hoping to find his wife surrounded by controlled culinary chaos. It probably looks a little exhausted, but handling everything with the competent efficiency that had attracted him to her in the first place.
La cocina estaba vacía. No solo vacío de gente, vacío de actividad. Los ingredientes del trabajo de preparación de ayer se sentaban exactamente donde Isabella los había dejado. No hay pavo en el horno. No hay ollas burbujeando en la estufa. No hay evidencia de que el maratón de Acción de Gracias había comenzado. Cocinay recetas
En el mostrador junto a la lista de invitados de su madre se encontraba un pedazo de papel doblado con su nombre en la letra de Isabella.
Even when he deployed it, some part of his brain refused to accept what he was reading.
“Hudson, something came up and I had to get out of town. You’ll have to handle Thanksgiving dinner. The groceries are in the fridge. Isabella.
Lo leyó tres veces antes de que las palabras comenzaran a tener sentido.
Ella se había ido. Isabella, su esposa, que nunca había perdido una obligación familiar, que nunca había dejado de entregar una comida perfecta, que nunca lo había dejado para manejar nada doméstico, se había ido.
Su primer pensamiento fue que alguien debe haber muerto, una emergencia familiar que le había requerido la salida inmediata. Cogió su teléfono y la llamó. Fue directamente al correo de voz.
“Bella, encontré tu nota. ¿Qué pasó? ¿La emergencia de quién? Llámame de inmediato. La gente va a empezar a llegar en seis horas y necesito saber cuándo volverás”.
Colgó y volvió a llamar. Buzón de voz de nuevo.
Fue entonces cuando el pánico comenzó a entrar. No te asusta la cena, eso parecía demasiado enorme para procesarlo todavía. Pánico sobre su esposa, que siempre contestaba su teléfono, que nunca iba a ninguna parte sin decirle exactamente dónde estaría y cuándo volvería. Comery beber
Llamó a su hermana, Carmen.
“Hudson, es temprano. ¿Está todo bien?”
“¿Está Isabella contigo? ¿Alguien de su familia… hay una emergencia?”
“¿Qué? No, todo el mundo está bien. ¿Por qué estaría Isabella aquí? ¿No está cocinando tu fiesta de Acción de Gracias?
La forma en que Carmen dijo “tu fiesta de Acción de Gracias” llevaba una ventaja que nunca había notado antes, como si supiera algo sobre sus arreglos navideños que ella no aprobaba.
“Dejó una nota diciendo que tenía que salir de la ciudad. Pensé que tal vez ella fue a ti. Quiero decir, treinta personas vienen a cenar en seis horas y ella ha desaparecido”.
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“¿Treinta personas?” La voz de Carmen se agudizó instantáneamente. “Hudson, ¿estás loco? ¿Esperabas que tu esposa cocinara para treinta personas por sí misma?
El juicio en su voz picó.
“Ella es buena en esto. Le gusta hospedar”.
“Le gusta organizar cenas íntimas con amigos, no alimentar a un ejército de sus familiares que la tratan como ayuda contratada”. Comida
Hudson ended the call, disturbed by Carmen’s reaction. Why was everyone acting like this somehow his fault?
He tried Isabella’s phone again. Voicemail.
At 8:15 a.m., his conference call with Singapore was coming. The call could not be missing. The one that could determine your promotion timeline for next year. But thirty-two people were waiting to have dinner in less than six hours.
She opened the refrigerator and stared at the contents. The raw turkeys looked at him accusing him. He had never cooked a turkey in his life. I’ve never cooked anything more complicated than scrambled eggs.
His phone rang. His mother.
“Good morning, sweetheart. How are the preparations going? Is Isabella handling the timeline correctly?
“Mom, we have a problem.”
“What kind of problem? Did he burn something yet? I told you we should have hired a catering company for a dinner of this size.” Food
“Isabella is gone.”
The silence.
“Have you gone where?”
“I don’t know. She left a note saying something came up and had to leave town. He doesn’t answer his phone.”
“That’s impossible. Isabella would never leave a dinner, especially not today. There must be some misunderstanding.”
Hudson looked back at the note as if he had changed.
“There are no misunderstandings. He’s gone, and we’ve got thirty-two people coming to dinner.”
The silence spread so long that Hudson wondered if the call had diminished.
“Mother, this is a disaster.”
His voice turned cold and sharp.
“An absolute disaster. What kind of wife leaves her family on Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving
Something about the way she said it, the immediate assumption that Isabella was the villain on this stage, caused Hudson to defend herself in a way that surprised him.
“Maybe he had an emergency. Maybe something happened that she couldn’t.”
“What emergency requires someone to leave thirty-two dinners without warning? What emergency prevents someone from answering your phone to explain the situation?
Hudson had no answer to that.
“We need to fix this right away,” Vivien continued, with the voice that assumes the command tone he used in handling family crises. “Call all the decent restaurants in town. See if any of them can prepare an emergency Thanksgiving dinner for thirty-two people.”
Hudson spent the next hour on the phone with restaurants, catering companies and hotels. Each conversation was the same way: laughter, followed by information that their Thanksgiving dinners had been booked for months. Communication teams
“Sir,” said the Hilton manager, “it’s 9:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving. Even if we had availability, which we don’t have, there’s no way to prepare a dinner for thirty-two people five hours in advance.”
A las 10:00 a.m., Hudson había agotado todas las opciones profesionales. Su conferencia telefónica en Singapur había ido y venido, ignorada. Probablemente había dañado su relación con su mayor cliente, pero eso parecía secundario a la crisis inmediata.
Él llamó a su madre.
“¿Alguna suerte con los restaurantes?”
– Nada. Todo el mundo está reservado. ¿Qué hacemos?”
“Lo cocinamos nosotros mismos, obviamente”.
Hudson miró de nuevo a los pavos crudos.
“Mamá, no sé cómo cocinar un pavo. No sé cómo cocinar nada de esto”. Cocinay recetas
“Entonces aprendes. YouTube existe. ¿Qué tan difícil puede ser?”
Vivien llegó con las mangas enrolladas y una expresión sombría que sugería que se estaba preparando para la batalla. Ella examinó la cocina como un general evaluando un campo de batalla donde todos los soldados habían desertado.
“Esto es peor de lo que pensaba”, anunció. “Estos pavos deberían haber estado en el horno hace cuatro horas. Nunca estarán listos a tiempo”.
Hudson, que había pasado la última hora viendo videos de YouTube sobre la preparación del pavo mientras entraba cada vez más en pánico, levantó la vista de su teléfono con una esperanza desesperada.
“¿Podemos cocinarlas más rápido de alguna manera? ¿Temperatura más alta?”
“Hudson, cariño, no puedes apresurar un pavo de veinte libras. La física no se doblega para acomodar los problemas de abandono de su esposa”.
Trabajaron en tenso silencio durante la siguiente hora, Vivien ladrando instrucciones mientras Hudson pasaba por tareas que Isabel siempre había hecho parecer sin esfuerzo. Los ingredientes del relleno se sentaban en los cuencos, luciendo como componentes para un experimento científico que ninguno de ellos entendía. La receta de la cazuela de judías verdes bien podría haber sido escrita en griego antiguo. Preparadospara relleno
“Where is the mixer standing?” Vivien demanded, overflowing through cabinets.
“No lo sé. Isabella siempre se encarga de las cosas de la cocina”.
“Bueno, Isabella no está aquí, ¿verdad?”
Al mediodía, el teléfono de Hudson comenzó a sonar con llamadas de familiares que preguntaban sobre los horarios de llegada y las restricciones dietéticas. Cada conversación se volvió más incómoda que la anterior.
“Hola, Hudson, es el tío Raymond. ¿Debería traer algo? Sé que Vivien dijo que todo estaba cubierto, pero la esposa hizo rellenos adicionales por si acaso”.
“Actually, Uncle Raymond, maybe you should bring the filling. And maybe anything else his wife could have done as a backup.”
“Contract? Is everything okay?”
Hudson looked at his mother, who was trying to fight a raw turkey in a pan while cursing on his breath.
“Just bring what you have.”
By 12:30, the word had been corrected through the family network that something was wrong with preparations for dinner. Hudson’s phone was constantly buzzing with confused family members who offered to help, ask questions, or try to figure out whether they should make alternative plans. Food
The kitchen had fallen into chaos. Vivien had managed to put a turkey in the oven, but it was clear to both of us that he would not be ready until the night. The accompanying dishes remained intact. The elegant timeline that Isabella always maintained had collapsed in panic and improvisation.
“This is humiliating,” Vivien said, flour in his hair and defeat in his voice. “Absolutely humiliating. The Sanders are going to think we’re incompetent.”
“Maybe we should cancel,” Hudson suggested weakly.
“Cancel? Cancel? We cannot cancel Thanksgiving dinner at 1:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Do you have any idea what people will think?”
But Hudson was beginning to realize that what people thought was the least of his problems.
