Talking Family: The Discourses of Voluntary Kin

Sample

Miriam scurried around the kitchen, working on Thanksgiving dinner. She checked the dining room table and decided it was lovely, with her grandmother’s linens and china that she used only for special dinners. She straightened the tall candles and the little Thanksgiving Pilgrim couple, figurines that had always graced her mother’s table when Miriam was growing up. Her mom, Esther, had given the Pilgrim couple to her when Miriam and Mike were newly married. Seeing them on her table brought back great childhood memories, despite the fact that Franco, the man she called “Little Bro,” teased her every year since he and his partner Steve had moved in next door, claiming that the man Pilgrim was gay. “I mean, come on, look at those pants, those boots with the big buckle, and that hat,” he’d say. Now Miriam’s son Matt was joining Franco in poking fun at the Pilgrim figurines. Little does Matt realize, he’ll inherit those Pilgrims, she thought, smiling to herself.