Chapter One

Chapter One

     Olive sat on the floral couch at her grandmother’s house. The smell of warm bread rolls and turkey drifted through the living room. Her two younger siblings Martin and Sheila sat on the floor playing a board game.

     Her grandfather and older brother Jason sat beside her watching the football game. They were loudly cheering for their team who was winning the game. She sighed with boredom wondering why she was in the living room considering how much she disliked sports.

     Olive stood and stretched. When was the food going to be ready? She wandered over to the counter. A variety of treats sat on the cool countertop. There was an apple pie, cookies, rolls, green bean casserole, and next to the food was a bottle of Cabernet.

     “What can I get for you, sweetie?” her grandmother spoke to her from the oven. She was stirring some gravy in a pot on top of the stove. Grandma Lee glanced back at Olive as she stirred.

     Grandma placed the spoon on a spoon rest and wiped her hands on a dishtowel.  She reached up into the cupboard and took out a crystal wine glass. She placed it next to the bottle of Cabernet. She poured the dark, red liquid into the glass and handed it to Olive.

     “Dinner is almost ready,” grandma smiled and grabbed a chocolate covered pretzel from one of the bowls on the counter. She chuckled gleefully at her sinful treat and returned to the stove.

     Olive sipped the bitter, sweet wine as she watched her grandmother pour the brown gravy into a fancy white gravy boat. Grandma opened the oven to check on the bird. She nodded with approval and removed the large, golden brown turkey.

     Just as she placed the turkey on the counter the presidential theme song began to blare on the television. Grandma muttered as she took a fork and carving knife out of a drawer. Grandpa and Jason began a heated argument about the president.

     “Hey!” grandma hollered. The two men stopped arguing and looked at her. She was pointing the carving knife in grandpa's direction. “There will be no politics at the Thanksgiving table!” Grandpa muttered and reached for the remote. “Shut it off and help me cut the turkey.”

     Grandpa turned down the volume, “Wolfe will probably have something important to say.”

     “Yeah, about how better he is than everyone,” Jason growled.

     “Turn it off!” grandma slammed the fork on the counter. “Dinner is ready. There will be no political talk at the table.” Grandpa reluctantly turned off the television. He sauntered over to the turkey and began to slice some of the juicy meat off of the bird. Everyone picked up a plate and piled food onto it.

     Everyone sat around the table and waited for their grandparents to sit down. Martin picked a marshmallow off of his sweet potatoes and nibbled on it. Grandma and grandpa sat at the table.

     “Will you say grace, dear?” she patted grandpa’s hand and smiled.

     The family reached around the table and held each other’s hand. Grandpa was silent in thought for a moment. He smiled and bowed his head.

     “Heavenly father,” he began. “Thank-you, Lord for blessing us with this feast and for my loving wife who cooked it. I want to thank-you for our beautiful family and for their safe arrival on this thankful day. In heaven’s name, amen.”

     “Amen,” the family said solemnly.

     The food was passed around the table. The children dug into the food on their plates. Olive shoveled some of the cranberry dressing into her little glass bowl.

     “This all looks so good,” Olive buttered her roll.

     The family all nodded and hummed with appreciation. Grandma smiled as she prepared her roll to eat. As usual everyone had over indulged and had to rest after the feast.

     Grandma gathered the empty plates and brought them to the kitchen sink. Olive stared through the window at the pine trees and snow. She always enjoyed coming up to the mountains during the holidays.

     She wished that she could come up more often. Olive missed coming up to go camping. She sighed and thought about how the floods and fires made camping virtually impossible over the years.

     She sipped her wine, “I miss coming here to camp.”

     “You’ll have another chance to camp sometime,” said grandma.

     “You can still do some winter camping,” mom chimed in. “There are yurts in this area.”

     “If there are any left,” said Jason from behind a newspaper. “I’m sure that the fires wiped some of them out.”

     Mom approached the television with the remote. She turned it on and began to surf through the channels. She began to change the channels and found an old Christmas movie that was playing.

     “Gag!” she changed the channel.

     “I kind of like that movie,” Olive muttered.

     Mom stopped on another channel and it was a holiday parade, “No!” She changed the channel and found a dog show. Satisfied, she sat on the couch next to Olive.

     The screen pixilated and made it difficult to see the dogs being paraded around. Mom sighed and turned off the television. She reached over and grabbed the ads from the paper on the coffee table.

     “Your tv isn’t working,” mom said.

     Grandma dried her hands off and joined mom on the couch, “There’s probably snow on the dish.”

     “There’s no snow on the dish,” grandpa said from the study.

     “Branches from a tree?” grandma pondered.

     “Nope,” he said. “Those were cleared this summer.”

     “Weird,” grandma flipped through the glossy ads.

     “Maybe something is corroded on the dish or cables,” said Olive.

     Grandma shrugged, “I don’t want to mess with it right now. I don’t want to spend time on the phone troubleshooting when I could be spending time with you guys.”

     “I’ll call them,” said grandpa. “You probably jinxed it by telling me to turn off President Wolfe.”

      “I’m sure he gets that a lot,” grumbled Jason.

     Grandma snorted, “Suit yourself.”

     Grandma muttered as grandpa tried to dial the cable company on his cell phone. Hold music played and then paused, “We are experiencing a higher call volume than normal, please hold,” a woman’s voice said. “If you would like to leave a message for a call back please press one.” Grandpa pressed the number one and the woman’s voice said, “Good-bye.”

            “God damn it!” grandpa shouted.

     “What’s going on?” asked grandma.

     Grandpa entered the living room, “I can’t get through.”

     Grandma muttered and moved a pile of papers off of the chair, “Why don’t you sit with and visit?”

     He walked over and sat down. Grandpa seemed to sulk as he sat quietly. Grandma offered him a paper and he gently waved it away. He slowly stood and walked over to the counter where he left his beer.

     “I didn’t know there was reception up here at all,” said Olive.

     Grandpa knitted his eyebrows, “That depends on who you have service with. We use a landline.”

     “Landline?” the children said in unison.

     Grandma grinned from ear to ear and continued to flip through the newspaper. Grandpa went back into the study. Grandma shook her head.

     “So, are you going shopping tomorrow?” she asked.

     Mom sneered and shook her head, “I really don’t feel like dealing with the traffic.”

     “We can do some window shopping,” she said.

     “Maybe, but I kind of want to relax at home,” mom put the ads back on the table.

     Grandpa attempted to call the cable company again and peered out the door with a cord stretched next to his ear, “They are having a higher than normal call volume. The call dropped again.”

     “That’s kind of weird for a holiday,” grandma looked up from the paper. “Well, I guess we can deal without the entertainment.”

     “It’s getting late anyway,” said mom. “It’s about time to head back.”

     Martin and Sheila grumbled. Mom stood and stretched. She handed the children their jackets and scarves. Olive and Jason grabbed their coats. Everyone hugged and bid each other farewell and a safe drive home.

     Grandma hurried to the kitchen and grabbed some plates of food that she prepared for everyone. Everyone piled into the car with their Thanksgiving leftovers. Mom started the car and they were off.

     Ella Fitzgerald sang a soft melody as they cruised down the mountain. Martin and Sheila dozed off in the back seat. As mom slowed toward the bottom of the mountain she gasped and pointed.

     “Oh, it’s a deer!” Olive smiled. She wondered where she left the camera.

     They continued driving. Olive viewed the scenery of the country that they passed. She looked at the huge homes next to the large fields for crops and cattle. She wondered if there was going to be another nasty winter.

     They arrived home and it was starting to get dark outside. The neighbors sped by. Mom grumbled about them driving too fast as she unbuckled the children’s seatbelts. Jason picked up the food from the car and brought it in as Olive helped bring in the children.

     Mom led Martin and Sheila to their beds. Olive joined Jason in the dining room where he was sipping on wine. Jason poured her a glass.

     She sat down next to him. She grabbed a deck of cards that sat in the middle of the table. She began to shuffle the worn cards in her hands.

     Jason sighed and looked tired, “Have you noticed that there were a few people who sped down the hill?”

     Olive shrugged, “They always do that.”

     He shook his head, “There’s not normally that much traffic during that time of the day on a holiday.” Olive was silent in thought. “Nobody zips around mom either.”

     “I didn’t notice anything,” said Olive.

     “Everything seems strange,” Jason poured another glass of wine. “Even though we are home I am still not getting a signal.”

     “Now you’re getting paranoid,” she said. “There is probably an issue with a cell phone tower.”

     “And satellite service?” he asked.

     She shrugged, “Don’t all cell phones operate off of satellites?”

     “I guess,” Jason looked at the clock. “The landlines are also having an issue.”

     “Have you tried turning on our television?” she asked.

     “We have Netflix and some apps for the weather,” he replied. “I can’t remember the last time we had a local channel or when we watched the news.”

     Olive took out her Kindle and opened Facebook. The last place to surely see anything would be on there. She only saw old posts from the morning. Very few of her friends were online.

     “All quiet on the newsfeed,” she closed Facebook and put down the Kindle. “More important things to do than hang out online. How dare they.”

     Jason smirked, “Either that or they can’t get online.”

     “Not everyone lives online,” Olive finished her wine and looked at the clock. “Well, at least we know for sure that the time is working. I’m going to bed.”