Here is a picture of the first Thanksgiving dinner I made for my family. It was 2012.

I had been gone the previous weekend for a conference but returned home in time for Thanksgiving. We had never made Thanksgiving dinner ourselves before. That year no one had invited us for the holiday, we were far from family, and besides, I wanted to try my hand at making a turkey (breast, in this case).

As is evident from the picture, it was a modest affair: turkey, corn, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, and bread of some sort. I hope there was desert but no evidence of it remains in the picture.

There is also no evidence in the picture of the small bottle of juice that I threw across the room and smashed into the wall, splattering it everywhere, after Ljubica left with the kids for the entire morning and afternoon.

Ljubica did not want to have Thanksgiving dinner. She didn’t want to cook. She didn’t want to clean up. It did not matter to her that I wanted to make Thanksgiving dinner, that I had been talking about it for weeks, or that I had bought a turkey. What mattered was that she wanted to take the kids to the park and have pizza. On Thanksgiving Day.

She didn’t cook. She didn’t clean up. She took the kids to the park and had me call her when dinner was ready. No one was home while I made it. No one saw me throw the bottle of juice across the room. No one saw me frantically clean the wall until almost no evidence of my anger remained.

I called. They came home. We offered thanks to God. We ate. I cleaned up.

But there was no joy in it for me. I made my wife eat a meal that she did not want. Even now I don’t know what to think. According to her definition of the word, I was being selfish. In this case, selfishness meant me doing something I wanted to do for my family. To avoid being selfish, all I needed to do was to do whatever she wanted. My marriage was a school for learning how not to want.

Spots remained from the bottle of juice I threw across the room. Ljubica noticed them. “Where did they come from?” she would ask. I never told her. I was too embarrassed. I still am. People I know will read this. They will know that I wrote it. What will they think of a man who can get so angry that he throws a bottle across a room?

I made Thanksgiving dinner last year, too. Ljubica invited two families she knew from the old country. Eight or nine people came to dinner. The centerpiece was a large brined turkey that took six hours to roast. It was beautiful. But Ljubica complained that I had made a turkey. She hadn’t wanted one, she said. She said that I had tricked her into having turkey because I had not reminded her that a year earlier she had said that she did not want to have turkey again for Thanksgiving. One of our guests, a woman, at least scolded her. “You have to have turkey,” she said. “It’s Thanksgiving.”

Now we are divorced. I have the kids this year for Thanksgiving. Yesterday they baked with me. We made two pies. We had a great time.

Last year’s guests will not be coming. The friends and acquaintances we had in common are now exclusively hers. She made sure of that. So I invited homeless people for dinner: Vince and his wife Marsha and Bob and his wife Kim.

We will give thanks with them.