Chapter 2
Dad set the foil trays along the counter, lining them up as carefully as if they belonged on a buffet table instead of his narrow kitchen. The turkey gave off a warm, peppery smell. Outside, the November light was already thinning, and every time headlights swept across the window, I looked up.
Dad noticed.
“You keep watching for them, you’ll wear a hole in that glass.”
“I’m watching the road.”
“Same thing.”
He lifted the lid from the stuffing and set it aside. For a moment, he studied the crumbs scattered across the foil.
“What did Karen tell you?”
I looked at him. He hadn’t asked while we were driving, or while I unpacked the food. He’d waited until there was nothing left to do with my hands.
“She said the table was crowded.”
Dad nodded once.
“She told me herself,” he said. “Last night.”
There was no anger in his voice, and no invitation for me to supply any. He tucked a corner of foil over the turkey, smoothing it with his thumb.
“Did she say anything else?”
“That her parents were particular.”
He stopped smoothing the foil. Then he continued, pressing the crease flat.
I wanted him to tell me it didn’t matter. I wanted him to call Karen selfish, or say something that would make my own anger easier to carry. Instead, he reached for the stack of paper plates.
“Plates are in the cupboard,” he said.
“I know where they are.”
“Then get them.”
I did. We set out a small spread on the kitchen table: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and rolls. The pie stayed on the counter, its crust broken where I’d packed it. Nothing about it looked like the dinner Karen had imagined, with silverware aligned and napkins folded into careful triangles. Here, Dad put a butter knife beside the rolls and asked if I wanted gravy.
“I brought it.”
“Good.”
His ordinary voice made my chest ache more than a speech would have.
A car turned onto the street. I leaned toward the window.
“Not them,” Dad said.
The car rolled past without slowing. I stepped back, embarrassed at being caught again.
Dad lowered himself into his chair. The old floor gave a small creak beneath his boots.
“You can still go home,” he said.
“I told you I’m not leaving.”
“You said it once. I heard you.”
A knock landed hard against the front door.
Dad didn’t move. I did.
Karen stood on the porch with her coat unbuttoned and her cheeks flushed from the cold. For a second, her gaze passed over me and went straight to the kitchen, where she could see the trays and the half-set table.
Then she looked back at me.
“What are you doing?”
“Having dinner.”
“With my parents on their way to our house.”
“You told them to come here.”
“I didn’t tell them to come here.” She glanced past me again. “They’re coming to our house.”
“They’re on their way.”
“That isn’t the same thing as bringing them into this.” Her voice dropped, but it sharpened. “You’ve turned a private disagreement into a spectacle.”
Dad appeared at the end of the hall. He didn’t come closer. He didn’t answer for me.
Karen saw him, and the words she’d been about to say seemed to catch behind her teeth.
“This doesn’t have to happen in front of them,” she said.
“Then don’t make it about what they think.”
“I’m trying to keep the day from getting worse.”
I held the door open. Cold air crept around my shoes.
“Are you staying?”
She hesitated, then stepped inside without answering. She kept her coat on.
“I’m not here to fight with your father.”
“Good,” Dad said from the hall.
Karen turned toward him. Her hands tightened around the strap of her purse.
“I’m sorry this became such a mess.”
Dad’s expression barely changed. “It was a quiet house before you got here.”
I felt the words land. Karen did, too. She looked at me as if I ought to take them back for him.
I didn’t.
A second car pulled into the drive. Karen’s head turned sharply toward the window. The tires crunched over the gravel, then stopped.
“That’s them,” she said.
Dad straightened. He reached for the back of a chair, gripping it for just a beat before letting go.
I moved toward the door, but he spoke first.
“Let them come in.”
Martin entered ahead of Elaine, rubbing his hands together against the cold. He had the tidy, composed look of a man who’d been prepared to arrive at a holiday table and found the wrong address instead. Elaine followed close behind, her eyes moving from Karen to me, then past us toward the kitchen.
Karen stepped forward.
“Dad, this isn’t—”
Martin stopped.
The color drained from his face. His eyes had found Dad, standing beneath the hall light in his plain work shirt, one hand resting on the chair. Behind Martin, Elaine went still, one glove half-removed.
For a moment, the only sound was the heater rattling in Dad’s kitchen.
May you like
Martin’s mouth parted. Whatever he’d planned to say to his daughter vanished.
“Jack,” he said, as if he’d spent decades hoping to see him again.
