Thanksgiving Day:
On Thanksgiving Day, Maria spent the first part of the day in Mechanicsville, Va., visiting her father’s family. She borrowed her grandmother's car and drove up to Mechanicsville the day before to spend time with them. They normally ate early and spent the rest of the evening watching football or movies.

Her father’s side of the family was huge and lived out in the rural area. They raised horses, chicken, turkeys, and cattle. Plus, they raised crops of summer and winter vegetables. Most of her aunts and uncles in Richmond were either retired military or schoolteachers. Some of her father’s brothers were mechanics and owned their own garages or worked for places like Merchants or Firestone.

It took her father’s side of the family awhile to adjust to the fact she was female. They knew she was born male, but after everything that happened with her. They had to adjust to the fact her body was developing into being a girl.

She had a bunch of cousins on her father’s side of the family and instead of buying gifts for everyone, they did the Pollyanna gift drawing. She drew her uncle George’s name this year. Last year she drew her cousin Kimmy’s name.

She had no idea what he liked, except football, so she’d get him something from his favorite team. Of course, she was regulated to help her aunts and grandmother in the kitchen. They put her on dessert duties. She could cook, but she wasn’t the best cook. She recently learned a few new cooking tricks from her roommate Vincent. She does good on simple desserts and a few fancy ones.

After having dinner with them, she doesn’t stick around. She drives back to Norfolk to spend time with her mother’s side of the family. She brings back a few extra pies she made while visiting her father’s side of the family. Her grandparents up in Richmond are nice people and they didn’t like how her father and her mother were choosing their military careers over her.

Of course, her father was going to spend the holidays overseas like always. Maria knew her mother didn’t have a choice, because she was out to sea until March. By the time Maria got back into Norfolk and arrived at her grandparents’ house, she was tired. She was happy that she didn’t have to deal with over forty people at her grandparents’ house.

Her cousin drops her off at her apartment. She knew Vincent wouldn’t be home until late. The restaurant he worked at was open during the holidays and they became extremely busy during the holidays. Maria changes out of the dress and shoes she wore and into her nice comfy pajamas. She curls up on the sofa watching Die Hard and slowly fall asleep.

The weeks afterward Thanksgiving, were busy at the shop. People were coming into the store buying either some of the arcade games Mr. Cain bought or some of the antique radios she refurbished. Two of the four junk boxes they had on display were sold.

As for the portable hard drive that had been brought into the store. It was still in her workspace. She was curious about what was on it and looked at the contents. At first, she didn’t know what she was looking at until it started clicking in her head. Everything on the drive is engineering drawing/drafting.

Maria browses the files and looks at each schematic. She wonders what it went to. She knew she needed to stop before she got into trouble. She closes the file and puts the hard drive in a safe area in her workspace. She tries contacting the person that brought the hard drive in but doesn’t get an answer. She should have told Mr. Cain about this, but he didn’t come in again and she didn’t know about the information until now.

According to Tom and Brad, Mr. Cain was in the hospital from a stroke he had during Thanksgiving. Mrs. Cain had called Tom during the holiday and told him about Mr. Cain’s heart attack and that he would be running the store for a while.

Maria sent flowers to the hospital where Mr. Cain was admitted to. She was going to go and see him on Saturday. She paces back and forth in her workspace and wonders if she should tell Tom instead. She needed to tell someone about what she discovered.

Maria pulls the drive out one more time and takes a screen shot of a single page. She put the drive back into the small safe in her workspace, which was hidden under her work bench. It would be the last place anyone would look.

At the end of her workday, she heads home. She stops at the grocery store to buy a few things. Vincent was working Christmas Eve and Christmas evening. She had to travel to her grandparents’ house on Christmas Eve. She was spending Christmas day with her grandparents down here in Norfolk.

After Maria does her shopping, she heads home. Since the store was only a few blocks from her apartment, she walks back to the apartment. When Maria arrives back to her apartment, she puts the groceries away. She was still thinking about what she should do about that drive. She didn’t want to blow anything out of proportion.

The person could be an engineering student or something. The thing was, when she looked at the schematics, they looked military. Maria walks over to her bookshelf and looks for her old electrical engineering book. She had a few repair manuals for military devices she has worked on. She finds the book she was looking for and opens it. She flips through the book until she finds what she is looking for. A grim look appears on her face as she puts the book away. She picked up her cellphone and closely examined the photo she took. Whatever this drawing was to, it was for the military.