After a minute, Bette said aloud, “Look…it’s Thanksgiving, Tina and I would like to invite anyone who wants to, give thanks,” after a few murmurs rippled through the crowd.  Tina nodded in support.

“We’ll start,” Bette offered, nodding at Tina, who carried Angelica in her arms.  The two were across the buffet table from her.

She chose a poem she and Tina had just read to Angelica the night before, glancing around fondly at each of their friends gathered around the table as she recited the poem from memory:

“For each new morning with its light,

For rest and shelter of the night,

For health and food, for love and friends,

For everything Thy goodness sends,”

Tina picked up from Bette:

“For flowers that bloom about our feet;

For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet;

For song of bird, and hum of bee;

For all things fair we hear or see,

Father in heaven, we thank Thee!”

“Nice,” George said, tilting his drink at Bette and Tina, blowing each a kiss.

“I’ll go next,” Logan, who stood one person away from Bette, called out. Bette turned to smile warmly at him.

“Whatever befalls us, and whatever straws we must grasp at times, there is always time for gratitude,” he said, with a lump in his throat, “ And new beginnings.”  He accepted Bette’s outstretched hand to clasp it.  He drew her hand up to his lips to kiss it gently, then glanced over at Tina and Angelica, and blew them a kiss also.

“My turn,” Shane said, from behind Tina.  “Thanksgiving is the day we acknowledge our dependence… on our friends, who are our family also,” she said simply, drawing Dana and Alice, who were flanking her, into side hugs.  They each stepped towards Tina to give the blonde and Angelica kisses.  They blew kisses towards Bette.

As they did so, Kit called out from the part of the crowd standing on the staircase, which overlooked the buffet table, “I’ll go next.”

“Please, Kit,” Bette nodded in her direction.

“Forever on Thanksgiving Day, like today, a wise man said the heart will find its pathway home.  And for everyone here, one such pathway is surely the one to Bette and Tina’s loving, wonderful, home.”  She blew kisses towards Bette and Tina.