So sorry for the delay! I got backed up with Thanksgiving of my own. I so appreciate your patience. Part III should be here by Sun. It should be a lot of fun! Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving and it was less crazy than the one Christian is having! xo

"The pilgrimz is coming! The pilgrimz is coming!" Phoebe shouts, running across the stage with that monstrous bird on a leash, like the Paula Revere of Thanksgiving; while the pilgrims and I make our progress on a ship headed for the new world. Ship being a cardboard cutout of a boat that looks a lot like the fire engine front they used for "stop, drop and roll" week, only painted over blue, the wheels haphazardly cut off, and a sail stapled to the top. There are certain big questions a man asks along the way in his life. How the hell did Christian Grey end up in charge of manning the Mayflower, is one.

The turkey whistle blows, which could only mean one thing...

"We've reached the Americaz!" I say, calling out to the crowd with me aboard- or rather just standing behind- the Mayflower; and they go wild. I have to pretend like I'm steering this ship and navigating us across choppy waters. Talk about a workout; I haven't done this much bending and bobbing since Ana and I took that trip to Napa where we never left the en suite hot tub. I wonder if that's where she got pregnant...

Memories of bath time and baby making are halted when I feel something strange crawling up my leg. It's hard to describe; it's like a tarantula who shaved himself and all the hair is growing back at different rates is trying to set up house on my leg. When I look down, I see that it's worse; Tilly's ankle is rubbing up against my knee sock. Jesus, this woman is relentless. At every turn she tries something with me. First, it was her fingers playing tip-toe games across my hip when we were being religiously persecuted; then it was her chest brushing my bicep when we set sail; now this. It's like she's mistaken the Mayflower for the Love Boat.

"Your ankle is moving up and down my leg," I whisper.

"Sorry, husband," she whispers back. "My foot slipped."

"Twenty-seven times?"

She winks. Her makeup looks so gargoyle today she should set up residence on top of Notre Dame. Oh wait, she's not wearing any. Suddenly, I'm wishing for the stubble-backed tarantula.

"Step on the rock!" Harry Funkle- idiot father to the notoriously sticky-fingered Funkle five- says way too loud and a line too soon. We haven't even made it off the damn ship yet to see the rock, how the fuck can I step on it? I give him a look that I'm sure his wife gives him when he gets his own rocks off too soon at home. I know it's a play on his name, but anyone who calls his hardware store Fun Unkle's has some serious issues. I'm just glad Ana never worked there.

Speaking of Ana, I scan the audience in search of my girl. I see my goddess sandwiched between my two favorite people in the world- Kavanagh and the photographer. Fitting, it's Thanksgiving and there are two turkeys front and center- Gobble Dee and Gobble Dum. They didn't even need the one Phoebe has on that leash; they could've just used Jose. I would've liked to drag him around by the neck, pluck his feathers, and serve him for dinner.

I notice the fucker's left foot it far too close to Ana's right for my liking. He drops his program and bends to pick it up, in an obvious move to get his lips in the vicinity of her calf. Is he sniffing her leg?! I know that fucker's game. Returning to an upright position, he whispers something and she laughs. What the fuck is he saying? No one makes my girl laugh, but me! I'm about to jump ship- literally- and make his foot kiss his face and his laugh kiss his ass, when Ana re-crosses her legs away from him, gives me a thumbs up and mouths "good job" for my thespianic endeavor. When she blows a kiss, my knees nearly buckle. Seven years and 2.25 kids later, she still makes me swoon.

"It's your line, sir!" I hear Taylor whisper-call to me from somewhere outside my ship in the cardboard forest of the Americas. There are so many of trees, I can't tell which one he is. They're all big and green and look just like him. "Dock the ship!"

Oh right. I wonder if the audience can hear him. Whatever, maybe they'll think it's the voice of God giving me divine prophesy or something.

"Our Mayflower ship that's sailed now dockz, for we have reached dear Plymoth Rockz," I say, pointing to the big rock ahead that's been smack dab in the middle of the stage since we left from Europe, but we're just recognizing now.

Light beams down from the heavens. Or rather, a flashlight that little Jimmy Carmichael shines down from his perch above us. He's supposed to spotlight the rock, but instead points it directly on some kid picking his nose and waving to his mother. Tilly makes a harried hand gesture with her hairy hand at Jimmy, and grunts a directive one could only detect by sonar. But, I guess Jimmy speaks Whale, because the flashlight moves to the rock.

I pretend to park the ship by picking it up and throwing it back stage.

"Fuck!" I, and all the horrified parents and laughing kids, hear Elliot yell out from somewhere behind the stage right side of the forest. I guess I hit him. Not sure why this delights me so. Probably because I'm still bitter he gets to wear the fringe vest.

"Go forth!" I lead my people to the promised land and a gigantic piece of spray painted foam rubber that's supposed to be the rock we all put or feet on. I'm told that, aside from the big dinner, this is the big moment in the Thanksgiving play. Is it just me, or were these pilgrims just a bonnet and curtain clothed cult with a repressed foot fetish?

"Step on the rock!" Harry blurts out again. I should've thrown this fucker off the ship when I had the chance.

I place my foot on the foam, careful not to press down too hard for fear that the squishy boulder will flatten into a pancake and history will have to be rewritten.

The pilgrim crowd cheers; so does the audience. Jesus, it's like they've never seen a man step on a rock before. Then again, maybe they never have.

The pilgrim children circle around me, clasping hands, and singing a song about the promise of a new day. New day. All I can think about as my ass cheek clenches and a cramp threatens to cease up my groin from holding my foot above this rock for the entirety of this song, is when this one is ending.

The words of a new day are stuck in my head now, so I forget what comes after this damn song. I look around for Taylor.

"Go to the woodz," Taylor says, like the voice of God, and I jump. I didn't realize he was directly behind me. He really blends into the bark.

"Stop sneaking up on me like that," I whisper out of the side of my mouth.

"I can't sneak up. I'm a tree."

Oh right.

"The woodz!" I declare with a victorious fist in the air and my people follow me as we pretend to move forward with exaggerated motions, but never really go anywhere. The lighting just gets darker and darker the farther we're supposed to be inside the forest and then we just stop. That's probably what sex with Tilly is like.

"I've got the chillz!" Teddy yells out, shivering like an electric jolt just hit him. He stops momentarily and looks up at me. "Did I do okay, Daddy?"

I give him a thumbs up. So much for not breaking character. But, at least he got his big line right.

"The snowz. The snowz. The snowz," the pilgrim kids chant and all chatter their teeth dramatically. They look more like they're eating corn-on-the-cob than freezing.

A harsh winter's snow begins to fall down, or rather the remnants of a hole puncher gone mad from a box that little Jimmy Carmichael is shaking from his perch overhead. Who is this kid? And why did they put a seven-year-old in charge of all the special effects? Aren't there child labor laws against this?

"Winter'z here!" I proclaim. Those fucking round pieces of paper are stuck in my hair, on my hat rim and clothes, and keep getting in my mouth when I say my lines.

"The windz. The windz. The windz," the kids say, as Jimmy points a gigantic fan at us at full speed. He's trying to mimic a blizzard, but the effect is more like when a dog sticks his head out the window on the highway instead of a perilous snowstorm.

"Go forth, for beyond the chillz and bitter windz is the peace at the endz," I say, pointing forward toward what's supposed to be a better day ahead, but is really just a kid holding a piece of cardboard with rainbow stripes and a sun drawn on it. I don't know what the hell my line infers. Does it mean the storm stops, or that we're put out of our misery and we all meet our maker at the pearly gates? Whatever the case, I'm supposed to make slow, exaggerated motions, pretending to fight my way through the storm as my brethren huddle behind me and follow. Tilly's clutching to my arm like it's her last Mr. Goodbar. I don't like arm clutching in general, but it's especially disturbing when it's Tilly.

Suddenly the stage is rushed by six preschoolers in green felt costumes with big biting alligator teeth that look like they escaped a science experiment gone terribly wrong. They attack half the population behind me, causing them to drop to the floor.

"The germz. The germz. The germz." The choir's at it again as the simulation of disease that wiped most of the pilgrim population out that first harsh winter is being reenacted. This all seems quite gruesome for a school play.

"Ewww, those are the boogers!" some little girl behind me yells, completely breaking character.

"Cool, boogers!" Teddy says.

"It's not boogers, it's pestilence," I whisper down to him.

"Like on your sweater?"

"What?" I'm suddenly glad this attack is so gruesome and loud, so the audience can't hear our conversation.

"Like pesty lints stuck on your sweaters."

"No, Teddy it's the plague."

"What's that?"

"It's a bug you don't want to catch."

"Ewww, bugs!" the girl screams again.

Before I can answer further, a germ attacks Tilly. She clamps her arms around mine, like The Claw, and tries to pull me closer. I fight to get away, but she's surprisingly strong. Maybe she just has better footing because she's so wide and low to the ground.

"Oh husband, I am illz," Tilly says, falling dramatically to the floor, and with one swift tug, taking me down with her. I scramble to get away, but her talons are digging into my forearm. I think she wants me on bended knee at her side, but there's no way I'm getting onto my knees to do anything with Tilly. "Husband, I don't know if I will survive another snowz. I need a kiss before I goez."

"I don't want to catch what you have," I say, as I jump off of her and move away.

"Is Miss Tilly the plague, Daddy?" Teddy whispers.

"Yes," I whisper back.

The carnage is done as more snow falls on the dead and the dying. One dead girl can't stop giggling.

"Oh woez!" I cry out. I don't know what the fuck that means. I think I'm verbalizing my tears. "Heavenz above and hell belowz. We can't bear even one more snowz!"

"One more snowz. One more snowz. One more snowz," the kids chant almost in unison, except for one boy that is continually a beat behind and poses each line as a question rather than a statement. Is that my ex son-in-law Albert Pott?! I swear if he lays one hand on Phoebe again, I'll kill him.

Then the floodgates open and Jimmy dumps the entire contents of his box onto the crowd, but since I'm directly under him and taller than the rest, mostly just on me.

The kids keep up their chanting. They've said "one more snowz" so many times, I wonder at what point one becomes two.

"Look to the dawn'z early light!" Taylor calls out. He always knows when I forget my line.

I step forward and the little children circle around again. With all this circling, you'd think one of them would get dizzy and drop. But, I guess kids are used to running circles around fathers. Wait, I spoke too soon. Some kid just spit up on my shoe.

"Sorrys, I burped up my tater tots," he says and I try to ignore it all.

"It's alwayz darkest 'fore the dawnz." We collectively turn and face an imaginary dawn. "One more snowz and we'll see the mornz."

"Sunz!" Taylor says, with an aggressive rustle.

"Sunz!" I repeat.

Winter is declared over as ten little pilgrim children carry a banner of a crayon drawn sunrise across the stage. All the dead ones on the floor get up and run off, trying to hide behind the banner as they escape.

"We have survived!" I proclaim and the lights go up to their highest on this new day, nearly blinding everyone who lived to see it.

The kids break into a chorus of Here Comez the Sunz a la the Beatles, but with a puritanical twist. With the z's! I want to point out that the 'z' placement there indicates there's more than one sun, but I keep my mouth shut, so as not to prolong this hell with questions.

Speaking of hell...

"Husband!" Tilly calls, holding a hand out for me to help her up. Like a true cockroach, she's survived.

Oh god, this is the moment Taylor warned me about; this is when Tilly goes in for the celebratory side hug after our mutual winter survival.

"Husband!" she's more insistent and her eyes wilder. "I can't get up by myself." This is probably true, due to her aforementioned wide and low status.

I move to help her up. As she gets upright, she reaches her free arm out in wrap-around fashion. But, before she can attack, I position myself behind Taylor's branches. She's going to have to fight limb-for-limb to get those suction cupped tentacles around me. This tree's been to war and won.

Phoebe, Ava and the rest of the Wampanoag kids rush the stage doing Indian calls and some sort of tribal dance. I'm not sure if they're attacking or having a party. Whatever the case, the Indians have infiltrated the colony and pilgrims have to look startled.

"Let's go back to the rock!" Harry Funkle yells out. What a moron.

"The great-" Phoebe and Ava say at once.

"That's my line!" Ava says, pushing Phoebe.

"It's my line!" Phoebe says, pushing back.

"Who says?"

"Me!"

As casually as possible I scoot away from my people and pull the two tribal girls apart before civil war breaks out.

"Why don't you say your line together and bring peace to your tribe?"

"I don't want peas, I wanna say my lines!" Phoebe huffs.

"I don't want peas, either," Ava says, scrunching up her nose in disgust.

"Good, you're united on something, say your line together."

"The great chief is herez," they begrudgingly say, with no fanfare, in unison. I guess we could call this 'the great peas accord'.

Oh fuck. My brother's the chief. Seventeen pages of dialogue with him until the Thanksgiving feast. We have five pages by the river, alone. That's where we're supposed to bond over bait hooks and the kids sing about making new friendz and keeping the oldz.

"Ho! Who goes there?" Elliot says to me as he takes the stage as the studly Native American chief with the fringe. I can here Kate whistle in the audience.

"It's not ho, it's how," I whisper.

"Oh right," he whispers back, though not quite as discreetly. "How goes there?"

What an idiot. I roll my eyes.

"The chief would like to say the most importantist things for awhile!" Phoebe says- taking broad liberties with her line- and blows her horn. I'm going to have the sound of that turkey whistle in my nightmares until I'm dead.

All eyes turn to Chief Elliot. He just stands there for several moments, saying nothing. Moments turn into minutes and we're all pin-drop silent, waiting for him to say something profound, but nothing ever happens. Art imitating life.

Finally...

"Let's eat!" he says, throwing his hands in the air.

The kids cheer.

What the fuck? He's just skipped all the way to Thanksgiving dinner!

"What are you doing?" I ask, as the kids run around celebrating the early arrival of dinner. "You were supposed to take me to woods to hunt turkeys and teach us how to plant corn!" We didn't till or toil or see the fruits of our labor. We didn't even get our moment by the river. "We can't give thanks for nothing!"

"Lighten up and eat, man," he shakes his head, puts Ava on his shoulders and joins the kids in their celebration. Oh sure, he's the popular one. Just because he took all the work out of dinner.

Colored paper leaves start to rain down in buckets worse than the snow.

"What's with the leaves?"I ask Taylor, spitting out one that flies in my mouth.

"It's fall."

"It can't be fall already! It was just spring!" Makes me wonder, much like in real life, where the summer went.

Phoebe pulls her Turkey from off-stage and blows the whistle another fifty-seven times.

"Thanksgiving'z coming! Thanksgiving'z coming!" she shouts and the turkey flaps his wings, as if on cue.

The children start in on a song of thankfulness sung to the tune of We Wish You a Merry Christmas. We've jumped forward so much in time, we're already there?

A table full of plastic vegetables; pumpkins leftover from Halloween with Jack-o-lantern faces drawn on the sides not facing the audience; and a cornucopia full of what else- corn, is pushed to center stage. The turkey flaps his wings as the kids grab for him and lift him onto the table, putting him smack dab in the middle of the spread. Why the hell a live turkey is standing on the table is beyond me. Are we supposed to be eating the thing or did we just invite him to dinner and we didn't have an extra seat? Maybe he's just decoration. I hope he doesn't shit on the potatoes.

Everyone sits around the miraculously-harvested-with-no-work-put-forth bounty and bows their heads in prayer, waiting for me to say something. Unlike Elliot, I'm not about to shirk on my dialogue responsibilities. I stand at the head of the table about to make my four page speech of blessing on the bird we're about to eat that's still alive, when I feel something crawling up my leg. I look down and see something small and furry and wearing a head dress eating those lost tater tots off my foot. And this time, it's not Tilly.

Oh fuck. Chester the papoose is on the loose. Stay calm, Grey. Just keep in character.

"Now we stand before the feastz to eat the meatz of this beastz." I give the bird an apologetic nod.

I try not to laugh as Chester crawls up my leg, but I can't stop my gyrations from the tickle.

"This maize and fowl we graze with thankz..."

Fuck, Chester has made his way into the cornucopia and is grazing, himself; chewing on acorns and kernels of dried colored corn. Maybe I can turn it over and trap him under it until after the show. No, the whole audience will see me do that and think I've gone mad. Not like they especially think I'm sane right now, but once the cornucopia is flipped, Thanksgiving is over.

Maybe he'll just stay and graze on the maize...

I spoke too soon. He's on the move again.

"Give thanks for your new friendz!" Taylor shouts from the bark. He thinks I forgot my line, when I'm really just watching Chester travel over some pumpkins. Luckily everyone's eyes at the table are closed and the turkey is blocking Chester from audience view. It's just me vs. rodent right now.

"We graze with thankz for all those far and all those near and for our new friendz who brought us here."

A rather impervious friend is on Tilly's dinner plate, just staring up at the closed eyed she-wolf, chomping his teeth. Wise hamster; he knows that's where the majority of the food will be heaped.

"For we survived the chill windz and snowz..."

Oh fuck, Chester's on the move again. He scampers over to the turkey, then under the turkey, sniffing his upturned tail feathers.

"Trouble has left you!" Taylor says. Oh no, it hasn't. Trouble hasn't even started yet.

"For all our troublez left us nowz."

Chester is now entirely up under the turkey's butt. If I were doing this to some turkey, I'd be arrested.

"For peace has come to our new landz..."

Chester opens his mouth. I know that look in his eyes. I've seen it right before he attacks.

"And friendz and foez will all hold handz..." I can tell you one that won't, and it's about to strike turkey flesh.

Everyone moves to hold hands. I try to shoo Chester away with a rogue acorn, but Tilly clamps down on my hand before I can.

Then...

Chomp!

The turkey shrieks, flapping his wings and flying all over the table.

"Ahhhh! It's a rat!" Tilly screams as Chester scurries along he wood edge of the table, trying to escape with a small ear of corn. I have to applaud Chester on that one.

There are screams from the audience in response to the mayhem on the stage.

"That's not a rat! That's Chester!" Phoebe says, chasing the furry fucker as he escapes through the forest.

"Do something!" I say to Taylor.

"I can't, sir. I'm a tree." He points to a rope tying him to the wall. "I have to be unattached."

I look to Elliot who's just laughing at the chaos going on around him, like it's a day at the circus. I guess that's how marriage with Kavanagh lasts; he likes circus acts.

Where the fuck is farmer Del? I thought he was supposed to watch this beast.

I decide to take matters into my own hands. I jump onto the table, throw my arms around the turkey and hold him down.

"Look, Uncle Christian's hugging the turkey!" Ava says and the kids clap.

"He used to choke his chicken in junior high all the time," Elliot says. What a fucking idiot.

"Is this part of the show?" Harry Funkle asks. As in life, nobody pays attention to him.

The bird starts flapping his wings in my face, so I can't see anything past ass feathers. When I try to hold the wings down, I feel something stab my hand. He's pecking me! And not one little love peck; machine gun assault multiples.

"God dam-" the kids all look at me. "I mean Dagnabbit!" I say, as blood drops from my hand. I wonder if this thing had its rabies shot. I can't hold his slippery feathers any longer. With one strong flap, he's free again.

As he runs, his claw catches on the basket weave of the cornucopia and he pulls it with him, dragging it in such a way it wipes nearly everything off the table. He wobble-runs for the edge. I try to grab him, but I can't reach. As he jumps off the table at the screaming audience, the cornucopia goes flying, sending ears of corn all over the crowd. It's like a 3D movie come to life.

"This is the most exciting Thanksgiving play ever!" Teddy says.

I was right; once the cornucopia is flipped, Thanksgiving is over.

#######

"You did so, good kids," Ana says as Teddy and Phoebe run into her waiting arms. "So did you, Daddy." Ana gives me a kiss on the lips, then one to my bandaged pecker wound.

"Well, at least I survived." Barely. I'm going to have beak and bite marks for weeks. And I think I'm missing a chunk of hair in the back from when the turkey got a mouthful in our wrestle.

"Did you meet my turkey friend, mommy?" Phoebe asks.

"I saw him; he's a very sweet bird."

Sweet? He destroyed the stage, ruined the first Thanksgiving dinner and nearly took off half my arm. I can't blame him totally, though. Chester is the real culprit. I go crazy when he chomps my flesh, too. I'm glad the papoose is tied up on Phoebe's back again.

"Yo, bro," Elliot says as he walks toward me with Kavanagh and Mr. Third Wheel America himself- the photographer. Every time I see them, they're coming at me in a group. Like locusts. "Fun playing out there with you."

"You skipped all of the scenes we were in!"

"You don't need to thank me."

"I wasn't."

Ava's chasing some screaming boy and Elliot takes off after her. She's so much like her mother.

"Ana, Jose and I are going to get stuff for Thanksgiving tomorrow," Kavanagh says, with a snarl. If Snagglepuss was a person, she'd be it.

"Who says?"

"Me." She gives me that snarky look that's like her regular face, but in high definition. "I think Ana can go to the Whole Foods by herself, Christian."

"She wouldn't be by herself, she'd be be with you." I stare her down. Don't try me, Kavanagh.

"I'll be there, too," the photographer pipes up.

"And I'm sure you'll bring your camera." To photograph Ana and her melons.

"Yeah, I'm going to take pre-Thanksgiving photos."

"What does that mean?"

"You know, getting ready for our big day."

"This isn't your "our, it's my "our"! I point to Ana. "And more importantly, it's "our" "our."

Everyone looks at me like I'm speaking Swahili.

"Excuse us as second." I pull my wife to the side. "Where did you get the crazy idea you have to buy food for Thanksgiving?"

"Do I have really have to answer that question?"

"You know what I mean, Gail and Taylor buy all that." I pick off a feather that's stuck to my sweaty brow. I try to bat it away, but it just stays floating in the air by my face, in taunt. "You're my wife and I don't want you spending your time in some grocery store."

"I wish he was my husband," some harried housewife, holding a kid on each hip, says as she passes.

"Christian, we're just shopping for a cheese plate selection and some crudités."

"Taylor can buy crudités. He's well seasoned on crudités selections. He's like the crudités King." It's odd, but true. He's supplied many a last minute business cocktail party with his platters.

"I want to pick out my own crudités."

"What's to pick out? They're vegetables, it's not that exciting!"

"I thought Taylor loves it."

"Taylor likes un-exciting things. He's worked for me for ten years. Most of his time is spent waiting in a parked car."

"What about the cheese?"

"He can pick that out, too."

"I want to spend time with my best friend, who happens to be your sister-in-law." Yeah, by the stoke of Satan's brush.

"Fine, but why does Jose have to go?"

"He's going to carry stuff. You don't want me heavy lifting now, do you?" she strokes her belly. She knows that's my weak spot.

"How much cheese are you going to buy?

She rolls her eyes. She's doing it on purpose, because she knows I can't spank her and fuck her in a nursery school bathroom. Well, I could, but...

"Jose just wants to be involved."

"That's what I'm worried about." Involved in looking up her skirt while she bends over to select a smelly Brie.

"I'll be home in an hour." She gives me a kiss and goes off with her friends.

"Looking forward to tomorrow, Christian!" The photographer says, waving.

"So am I." Fucker. I'm going to steal that camera off his neck and flash photos of his face when he finds out about baby number three. Doesn't anyone find it odd that he's almost thirty and he's never had a relationship with anyone other than his camera?

"Come on kids," I say to Phoebe and Teddy, ushering them to the elevator. "Let's go."

"My turkey friend!" Phoebe shouts, pointing at Del who's walking by with that turkey on his leash. She runs over to them.

"Phoebe, enough with that bird!" I chase after her, with Teddy close behind.

"Sorry about your injuries, Mr. Grey," Del says. Fucker.

"Thank you, Del. I'm sorry you couldn't break yourself away from the donut box to manage your bird."

"No problem."

"I love you, Mr. Turkey!" Phoebe says, kissing it on the head.

"Don't kiss the bird," I pull her back. "You don't know where he's been sticking his head." Maybe I should've given Kavanagh that advice about Elliot before the wedding.

"Gotta take this guy back to the farm," Del says.

"No!" Phoebe says, falling to her knees and hugging that bird like it's her brother. Come to think of it, she's never hugged Teddy that way. Maybe Chester.

"Phoebe, the turkey needs to go home," I say, bending down and trying to get her to move, but she won't budge.

"Can I visit him, Daddy?" Phoebe asks.

"Yeah, Dad! Can we go see him on the farm?" I bet it's real dirty there and has got bugs!" Teddy says, excitedly. This kid and dirt!

"Sure, we can-"

"Sorry, kids," Del buts in. "He won't be visitable tomorrow." Visitable? This guy needs to shut his fucking mouth with a staple gun.

"Why not?" Phoebe asks.

"Because he'll be busy with his acting career," I say. "Kids, wave bye-bye to the bird and turkey man and let's go get ice cream." When all else is failing, try ice cream.

"Acting career," Del laughs. "Yep, he sure is going to be the star at Thanksgiving tomorrow." This fucker won't shut up!

"He's in another play tomorrow?" Teddy asks.

"Can we see it?" Phoebe asks.

"No, we have Thanksgiving at our house. We'll catch him when he goes on the road. Kids, let's go."

Del laughs again. "No, tomorrow he's not in a show. He's dinner."

Phoebe screams bloody murder. The whole place stops and turns. That girl has a blood curdler straight out of a horror flick.

"Farmer's going to kill our turkey!" Teddy says, starting to cry.

"Why the hell did you tell them that?" I ask Del as Phoebe and Teddy, both now in tears, cling to the bird.

Tilly rushes over. Oh god. Not now.

"What's going on?" she asks.

"This idiot told my kids that their friend is going to be dinner!"

"I told them he's going to be a nice dinner. It was a compliment to the bird."

It's taking all my self control not to attack this fucker!

"Let me talk to them, Mr. Grey," Tilly says, bending over to them in a frog-like squat. Well, at least she's supposedly a professional with kids, maybe she'll know what to say.

"Remember how I told you it's a special day for turkeys?" she asks. They nod, sniffling. "You know why that is?" The kids shrug.

"'Cause they're cute?" Phoebe asks.

Tilly smiles and shakes her head.

"It's because they provide dinner for nice families like you."

"Ahhh!" Phoebe screams again, now holding onto my leg in a vice grip. Now, I know officially that Tilly isn't a professional at anything but eating and keeping the lawn on her legs, and probably everything else south of the naval boarder, un-manicured.

"Are you people crazy?"

"Mr. Grey, it's a fact of life," she says. "Nobody gets a happy ending just because they want one." With that tone, I think she's speaking from experience.

"Nobody makes my children cry and gets away with it!"

"Mr. Grey, I know you mean well, but they have to know their father can't just wave his magic wand and make everything good for them. There are some things you just have no control over."

I glare at her. Those are fighting words.

#######

"Sir, what are you doing with the turkey?" Taylor asks, opening the door to the SUV for the kids and I, and this bird on a leash as we leave the school.

"Don't ask," I say, looking down at the new Grey family pet. $5000 dollars later and he's mine. That Del was so pissed at me, he kept upping the price; but, I'm never outbid.

"What should we name him, Daddy?"

"Killer." Another fucker that wants a taste of my flesh. It's like I collect them. Hell, I may be impractical-crazy even- but nobody makes my kids cry and tells them I can't make everything better.

"How about Stan?" Teddy asks.

"Why Stan?"

He shrugs. "I like Stan."

"What's his tag say?" Phoebe asks, pointing to a round white tag attached to a wing feather.

"Reserved for Boone," I read. I guess the Boone family won't be having turkey this year.

Taylor opens the back door and I lift the thing inside.

"Let's call him that!" Phoebe says and Teddy nods in agreement.

Boone the turkey. I shake my head.

"Daddy, you're the best daddy ever!" Phoebe says, giving me a big kiss on the cheek as I shut the door; I smile. There's nothing better in life than making my kids happy. Even if it means more flesh wounds for Dad.

"Can he sleep in my bed?" she asks.

"No! He sleeps in the barn."

"But, it's cold out there."

"We'll put in a space heater."

"And a sofa?"

"A sofa?"

"He needs somewhere soft to sit when he watches TV." Jesus, this turkey is going to have a luxury apartment. He's certainly moved on up; he's like the poultry version of the Jeffersons.

"I wonder if he can skate board," Teddy says, as we all climb into the car.

"You're not putting the turkey on a skate board!" I say, buckling them in and closing the door.

"What about my train?"

"He's twelve times bigger than your train set. It'll be like Godzilla's attacking."

"I know!" he says, with wide eyed excitement.

As we take off for home, I get a text from Ana. Fuck. Ana's going to kill me.

I read the text- "I'm afraid we won't have enough meat for everyone. Can you pick up an extra turkey on your way home?"

She has no idea.

I lean my head back on the rest and close my eyes. I just want to get through this day and survive Thanksgiving tomorrow in one piece. And just as I begin to relax, there's a turkey beak tickling my ear.

To be continued in Part III...