It was the day before my 10th birthday. Double digits this year. The stores were already decorating for Thanksgiving, with hints of Christmas peeking out of the aisles.

 “We’re here just for necessities,” my mom said, leading me toward the cake mixes. I loved this tradition of picking out my cake flavor. Mom made my cake every year and she always used a Duncan Hines cake mix as a base, but then added her extra secret ingredients to make it taste better. And homemade frosting. Always homemade frosting. Because the cake mix itself didn’t matter so much, but the canned frosting didn’t hold a candle to her homemade icing. I looked over the options, mulling a carrot cake versus devil’s food cake. And, oh, there’s the German chocolate cake too, but that icing meant getting pecans and coconut as well, and mom made it clear that her paycheck was late so I tried to be mindful of the extra expense. Finally I settled on devil’s food cake and asked for chocolate chip buttercream icing. Mom added the red and yellow box to the basket and said, “we need more eggs, too. I only have one left at home.” 

We made our way to the dairy, saying hello to the lobsters in the seafood case on the way. In front of the egg cooler, there was an end cap with individual butter sculptures carved like turkeys. Mom paused and gasped when she saw them. “Aren’t these just the most extravagant thing ever?” She ran her fingers over the box, as if she wanted to poke at the waddle of the butter turkey to see if it would gobble. She lingered a little longer, sighing that it was an unnecessary expense, but boy wouldn’t that be cool on the Thanksgiving table, before turning to the egg cooler and retrieving a dozen large. The way my mom said “extravagant” with a hint of longing, a smidgen of preposterousness, and a touch of regret made me want to experience that butter sculpture. I wondered if it would taste different, being carved up to look like a turkey. Surely it had to, if rich people were buying it. I determined right then and there that I would get one of those butter turkey sculptures on our Thanksgiving table somehow.

Mom made my birthday cake while I was at school the next day, and I opened my presents when I got home after I blew out my candles. I hadn’t stopped thinking about that butter sculpture we had seen, so when I opened my card from Papa and there was a crisp $20 bill with a note that said, “Buy yourself something extravagant…” I knew what I had to do. 

That Saturday, I asked mom if I could walk down to Kroger by myself; now that I was 10 I felt I was old enough. She agreed, but insisted on following me down and back in the car. I felt so free and grown walking down the big hill and in through the double doors. I thought to myself, “ten is old enough to walk to the grocery store by myself. It’s also old enough to start contributing to the house.”

I quickly weaved my way to the back corner of the store, praying the whole way that nobody had bought all the turkeys, and was rewarded with a whole selection of butter sculptures in the dairy. I picked one up, purchased it, and went back outside to let mom know I had made it out okay. I handed her the bag with the butter turkey in it and said, “I bought this for Thanksgiving because I wanted you to have something special.” Mom immediately started crying when she looked in the bag and said I shouldn’t have, but that it would look perfect on our Thanksgiving table. She’s always good about being grateful for gifts, even if she thinks I wasted my money. I asked if she would drive me up the big hill so I didn’t have to walk it by myself and she said of course.

At Thanksgiving, I helped set the table and put the butter turkey on a little plate in the center of the table next to mom’s yeast rolls. We said grace and loaded our plates. It was just the two of us so when we went to butter our rolls, we looked at the turkey sculpture and then at each other. It seemed a shame to cut into something so beautiful, we didn’t even know where to start. Finally mom said, “aw hell, I’m just gonna go for it” and cut that butter turkey’s head clean off and smeared it in the roll’s crevice. I started laughing at the headless butter carcass that remained and said, “I’m going to go for its butt” and took the tail feathers right off. Mom giggled and watched me as I took a bite of the roll with the fancy butter. I felt the creaminess and saltiness of the butter on my tongue and lips and pressed the excess to the roof of my mouth. I wanted to taste the indulgence that wealthy people thought nothing of and let my whole body feel its richness. Mom smiled at me and said, “I’m so thankful for you, turkey butt. I love you so much.” 

“I love you, too, mama. Happy Thanksgiving” and we devoured our dinners with the headless, buttless butter turkey between us, both of us realizing that the ultimate extravagance was spending the holiday together with a home cooked meal.