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mistaken for Secret Service agents discreetly burying one of their own. The cemetery bordered a county golf course, and a boisterous round could be heard in progress just over a tall hedge. When the priest closed his book and blessed the deceased’s eternal soul, the limousine driver stepped forward and flipped a switch that engaged a pulley. As the casket descended into the ground, father and son made their silent farewells, and hereafter would recall this moment of departure and loss with such ambient details as the smell of mown grass, the twitter of a bird or two, the irregular screak of a pulley motor, and the hoots and high fives of golfers in triumph.
    In the backseat of the limousine, father and son loosened their ties. They gazed out the windows, watching the cemetery grounds roll away and the terrain of strip malls and auto dealerships along the highway unreel past them. As their neighborhood glided into view, the father turned away from the window, pressed his fist between his knees, and let out a small sigh. It was a tiny, restrained exhalation, a brief leak of air that nonetheless seemed to deflate him completely and leave him shrunken inside his suit. The mortician, watching in the side-view mirror, casually wiped the corner of his eye. And even the veteran limousine driver—a mortuary science student in his third summer with the funeral home—even he got weepy and had to stop chewing his gum to blink back a tear.
    They pulled up in front of a small yellow house with a gabled roof and a single dormer window that faced the street. The stucco was chipped and patched, but the shrubs and lawn were neatly trimmed. The mortician opened the passenger door, and as the father and son climbed out, he asked them to wait a moment. He went around to the trunk and hefted out a roundish, foil-wrapped package in an open cardboard box. The mortician was a beefy, red-faced man. He looked more like a plumber than a mortician. He stood cradling the box like an infant. Seeing as it was Thanksgiving tomorrow, he was saying, he hoped they would find use for a complimentary fifteen-pound cooked turkey, with his condolences and all the trimmings. He handed them the box, solemnly squeezed their shoulders, then climbed back into the limousine. The two of them watched the vehicle pull away from the curb, ease down the street, turn left without signaling, and disappear from view.
    The father followed his son into the house, then into the kitchen. “Are you hungry, Pop?” the young man asked. He slid the heavy box onto the table in the breakfast nook and examined its contents.
    “I could eat, I guess.”
    In addition to the turkey, there were two cans of cranberry sauce, two cans of candied yams, a quart of mashed potatoes, a loaf of soft white bread, and a pint of gravy. The son peeled back several layers of foil from the turkey to reveal a patch of crisp browned flesh, which he probed with his finger. It was still warm.
    “Smells good, huh?” he said. He moved the box to the kitchen counter, lifted the turkey out, and put it back on the table. His father pulled plates and silverware out of cupboards and drawers. The boy took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. He unwrapped the turkey until it sat brown and glistening on a bed of shredded foil. He gingerly grasped a drumstick and tugged. The turkey had been steaming in its wrapping for some time, so the leg came off easily. He set this on his father’s plate and pulled the other drumstick off for himself.
    The older man had since removed his coat and now sat opposite his son. “I’m really not that hungry,” he said. But he began to eat anyway. He used his knife and fork to slice off small pieces, which he chewed thoroughly. His son meanwhile was holding the drumstick with both hands, biting off hunks of meat that hung out of his mouth. While the younger man appeared to be eating faster, it was the father who finished first. He ate at an unceasing pace, methodically cutting