My brother made me stand at our family supper and said, “Let’s hear your pretend call sign.” My parents stayed seated while his wife laughed into her cup. I gave him the answer he’d demanded, and his chief got up so fast that my brother reached for him before he understood why.
I’d come to eat with my family, and now people from other tables were waiting for me to make a fool of myself.
Nicolas kept his hand lifted, as if he were introducing entertainment he’d paid for.
“Go ahead, Mariah.”
His wife, Camila, moved her coffee away from her mouth so I could see her smile.
I stayed beside my chair.
The supper followed a ceremony at a veterans’ club in Portsmouth, and my brother hadn’t changed out of his uniform.
He’d spent the meal brushing something invisible off his ribbons whenever anyone addressed me.
I’d answered a question about getting leave.
That was enough.
“Leave from WHAT?” he said. “Making slides?”
Mom pulled her chair closer to the table without looking at either of us.
Dad moved a piece of chicken around his plate.
The man beside Nicolas lowered his soda tumbler and said, “Say that again.”
My brother turned toward him.
“The call sign thing?”
“Yes.”
Nicolas took that as encouragement, which was how he took most things when someone hadn’t expressly told him to stop.
He pointed toward me again.
“My sister does Navy paperwork, but she likes to keep everybody guessing.”
Wesley didn’t laugh.
I knew his first name because Nicolas had used it throughout supper, usually before a story about himself.
His place card said Chief Warrant Officer Thiel.
“You’ve worked with actual people out there,” Nicolas said to him. “You’ll appreciate this.”
Mom reached toward the serving dish.
“Let’s eat before it gets cold.”
She said it to me.
She always did.
Over 27 years, my brother had learned exactly how far he could go before Mom wanted to change the subject.
He’d also learned that changing the subject cost him nothing.
When we were young, he’d held my schoolbag above my reach until I cried, then complained that I couldn’t take a joke.
Later, my acceptance into officer training became a story about how badly they needed women.
At my promotion, his chair stayed empty.
He sent a message afterward asking whether the new rank came with a better stapler.
I’d deleted it before showing anyone.
At supper, he rubbed his sleeve and leaned back far enough that Camila shifted her chair.
“Does the office give you a name?” he said. “Or do you get to choose something scary yourself?”
A laugh came from farther down the table.
Dad kept eating.
I pressed the curled edge of my paper place mat against the table until it stayed flat.
My chicken hadn’t been touched.
There was a pea trapped under the rim of Dad’s plate, and Mom kept trying to get it with her spoon.
I wanted her to look up.
She didn’t.
“Sit down, Nicolas,” I said.
He stayed seated and spread his hands toward me instead.
“You’re the one standing. We’re waiting.”
He’d asked me to stand so everyone could hear, and I’d done it before thinking.
That bothered me more than the laughter.
Even there, I still moved when my younger brother told me to.
Wesley had stopped eating.
His soup spoon rested against his fingers, and his attention stayed on my face rather than on Nicolas.
“She can’t tell us,” my brother said. “It’s SECRET.”
Camila pushed his elbow.
But she was smiling.
“Just tell him,” Mom said to me. “Then perhaps we can finish.”
I looked at Nicolas.
“Kestrel Six.”
Wesley’s fingers opened.
The spoon hit the edge of his bowl and dropped onto the table.
My brother started another laugh, but Wesley was already pushing his chair back.
He stood so abruptly that Nicolas caught at his sleeve.
Wesley pulled free without looking down.
Then he saluted me.
“Ma’am.”
My hands stayed beside the chair.
Across the terrace, someone stopped speaking in the middle of a sentence.
Nicolas was still holding his arm out where Wesley’s sleeve had been.
He lowered it.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Mom caught her bracelet against the table edge when she drew back.
Camila set her coffee down crookedly in its saucer.
Dad finally faced me.
Wesley held the salute until I returned it, then lowered his hand.
“Please sit,” I said.
His chair remained behind him.
Nicolas stood instead.
He came around the corner of the table and planted himself opposite me, close enough that I had to tip my chin up.
“Is this something you arranged?”
I kept my fingers against the chair back.
He looked between us.
“Seriously. Did she put you up to this?”
Wesley said nothing.
My brother’s mouth stayed open for another word, but he closed it and pulled at his jacket.
“Fine. Explain why that code matters.”
I reached for my tea.
The cup knocked against the saucer when I lifted it, and I hated that he could hear it.
“You wanted the name,” I said. “You’ve got it.”
“That’s your answer?”
“Yes.”
He turned toward his wife as if she could restart the laughter.
Camila was rubbing coffee off her thumb.
Wesley moved his chair back under the table.
“Nicolas, leave this alone.”
My brother gave him a quick look.
“You’re telling ME to leave it?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Because she said some words?”
Wesley faced me again.
“I knew your voice before you gave the name,” he said.
My cup stopped halfway to the saucer.
He swallowed and glanced at the tables around us.
“Couldn’t place it with everybody talking.”
Nicolas folded his arms.
“From where?”
Wesley kept addressing me.
“We never got a photograph. We weren’t given your name.”
Dad pushed his plate away.
“Only the channel,” Wesley said. “And when you came on it, nobody else spoke.”
My brother’s arms loosened.
Wesley paused, then said, “I remember waiting to hear whether you’d send us back.”
I set the cup down.
“That’s enough detail.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Nicolas took a step away from me, then stopped as though he’d caught himself doing it.
“You can tell him to stop talking?”
I didn’t answer that.
His face turned toward Mom, but she was holding her bracelet against her wrist.
“Mariah. What exactly do you do?”
He’d asked me versions of that question for years and supplied his own answer before I could open my mouth.
Now he waited.
I could hear Camila’s spoon moving against her saucer.
“THEY WAITED FOR MY ORDER,” I said.
Wesley lowered his eyes briefly, then brought them back to mine.
“May I say something?”
I nodded.
He turned toward my brother.
“You’ve had your fun. Don’t ask her to explain it here.”
Nicolas glanced around the terrace.
His fingers found his sleeve again, but this time he left the ribbons alone.
“Why can’t she?”
Wesley moved beside my chair.
“Because I was there,” he said, “and even I wasn’t cleared to hear the rest.”
My coat
“He knew his part,” I said. “He wasn’t entitled to everybody else’s.”
I pulled my chair out and sat down.
That was the explanation Nicolas could have in public. Wesley had recognized the voice of an officer whose orders he’d followed. He couldn’t give my brother the rest of the operation over a serving dish, and neither could I.
Nicolas stayed above me.
“So we’re supposed to take your word.”
“You asked for a call sign. You got one.”
“And that’s convenient.”
Mom picked up my coat from the spare chair.
“Come inside with me, Mariah.”
She folded it over her arm. My bag was still under my feet, but she had me halfway to the parking lot already.
“Why?”
“We could get some air.”
“We’re outside.”
Camila reached for her coffee again, then put her hand in her lap.
Mom looked toward the doors.
“I meant away from all this.”
I wanted to go. That was the part I disliked most. My coat was right there. I could get into my car, drive home, and spend the journey inventing sentences that would have been useful ten minutes earlier.
Nicolas stepped aside to let me pass.
He even put his hand out toward the door.
Wesley returned to his chair but didn’t sit. Dad took his phone off the table and put it in his pocket.
“No,” I said.
Mom held the coat against herself.
“No, what?”
“I’m staying for supper.”
Nicolas gave a short laugh.
“Then stop making it awkward.”
I put my napkin across my lap. The chicken could have been used to mend a shoe by then, but I had come for supper and apparently I was going to need evidence.
“Put my coat back, Mom.”
She looked at Dad.
He looked at Nicolas.
Nobody put it back.
Six chairs
Earlier that afternoon, before we sat down, Dad had asked for a photograph of both his children.
Nicolas had said we’d do it after supper, when Wesley could join us.
Now Dad’s phone was in his pocket, and Mom stood holding my coat as though the photograph had been canceled on account of me.
“Please,” I said.
She laid it across the spare chair.
The sleeve slipped onto the ground. I picked it up myself.
Before the ceremony, I’d spent twelve minutes in my car deciding whether my clothes looked too formal. Then I’d spent another five deciding whether that was a ridiculous thing for a grown woman to worry about.
I had come as their daughter. No uniform. Nothing Nicolas could call showing off.
I’d brought myself, which had always been the troublesome part.
“Sunday will be easier,” Mom said. “At your house.”
Nicolas sat down.
“There we go. Something normal.”
Sunday was supposed to be my first family visit at home since I’d returned. Six chairs, if everyone came. Mom had asked whether she and Dad could stay two nights, and I’d made up the spare room before leaving for the ceremony.
Nicolas had invited himself and Camila for the afternoon.
Then he’d told me what time to serve lunch.
“You said you wanted us all together,” Mom said.
“I do.”
“Well, then.”
She sat down as if that settled what had just happened.
A week earlier, on the phone, she’d asked me to let Nicolas enjoy the ceremony.
“Of course,” I’d said.
“And if he gets a little carried away?”
“I’ll bring a net.”
She hadn’t laughed. I’d promised not to start anything, because that was easier than explaining that I hadn’t started the last twenty things either.
At the supper table, her hand settled beside mine.
I almost turned my palm over.
Then she patted the back of it.
“He’s proud of his service.”
“So am I.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
Nicolas reached for the serving dish.
“We don’t have to compare.”
He had brought a ruler to the table and now wanted credit for putting it away.
Wesley sat down. He moved the fallen spoon beside his bowl.
Dad cleared his throat.
“We came to support your brother today.”
“I did support him.”
“Nobody’s saying you didn’t.”
Nicolas put another piece of chicken on his plate.
“I’d just like one family occasion without getting a lecture.”
I hadn’t given him one. I hadn’t finished a sentence longer than the things he kept demanding I explain.
I looked at Dad.
“Could you tell him that?”
Dad took his hand off his pocket.
“Tell him what?”
“That I didn’t start this.”
He turned toward Nicolas, and I waited.
“Let’s get that picture before we lose the light.”
Beside the terrace door
I stood before Dad could take out his phone.
“Nicolas. Can we speak over there?”
I pointed toward the terrace door, a few steps from our table.
His eyebrows went up.
“Am I being summoned now?”
“I’m asking you to speak to me.”
“Everybody here knows we’re related.”
“That’s why I’m asking.”
He glanced at Wesley before getting up. He pushed his chair back farther than necessary, and a man at the next table moved his foot.
I led Nicolas to the door. Through the glass, I could see our parents at the table, Mom smoothing the place mat I’d spent half the meal pressing flat.
My brother stood with his back to them.
For a moment he looked like the boy who used to wait outside my room after an argument, hoping I’d be the one to open the door.
I nearly gave him that version of himself.
“Say you got carried away,” I said. “Then we can sit down.”
“You brought me over here for that?”
“You called me a liar.”
“I said pretend. It was a joke.”
“Tell them it was a bad one.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Do you understand what you did back there?”
“I answered you.”
“You could’ve said you didn’t want to play.”
“I told you to sit down.”
“You know what I mean.”
I did know. He wanted the missing line from the performance: me smiling, everybody laughing, supper continuing. I had been supplying it for years without anybody having to hand me a script.
“An apology,” I said. “That’s all.”
He looked past me toward the table.
“You embarrassed me in front of him.”
“You introduced me as entertainment.”
“He’s someone I respect.”
That one went in clean.
I moved away from the door so people could pass. Nicolas moved with me.
“Then try listening to him,” I said.
He put his hands on his hips.
“You could clear this up right now. Tell me your job. Tell me why he knows you. Something other than this whole mysterious thing.”
“I’m a Navy officer. You’ve known that for years.”
“That’s a category.”
“It was enough for the Navy.”
He didn’t smile.
I nearly did. I was angry enough to laugh at my own material, which is a poor standard even at a family gathering.
“Your work isn’t on trial,” I said. “Neither is mine.”
“You’ve got everybody looking at me like I’m an idiot.”
“Then stop asking the same question.”
His face changed.
He stepped around me and went back to the table.
I followed, still hoping he’d sit down and say something clumsy but usable. I’d have accepted clumsy. I’d have framed clumsy.
Instead, he stopped beside Wesley.
“I tried,” he said. “She won’t let it go.”
Mom looked straight at me.
My brother had crossed six feet of terrace and arrived with a different conversation.
Dad’s pocket
“That’s not what happened,” I said.
Nicolas held up both hands.
“Fine. You tell it.”
“I asked him to apologize.”
“For making a joke,” he said.
“For calling my service pretend.”
Dad took his phone from his pocket.
“Could we have the picture first?”
“No,” I said.
It came out louder than I’d meant.
At the next table, a chair stopped moving. Mom closed her eyes.
Nicolas sat down with a little nod, as if I’d just signed a statement for him.
“There it is.”
Dad stood.
“Mariah, come here a minute.”
I stayed beside my chair.
“You can say it here.”
He put the phone down again.
“Your brother shouldn’t have teased you.”
Nicolas opened his mouth.
Dad lifted a finger toward him.
I held on to that finger like it was a rope.
Dad’s attention shifted my way.
“But there’s no need to bring rank into a family meal.”
I looked at him.
“I didn’t salute myself.”
Wesley moved his hands off the table.
“Sir, that was my decision.”
Dad nodded at him with the courtesy he’d somehow run out of for me.
“I understand. But these two have been at each other since they were children.”
“No,” I said.
Mom reached across my plate.
“Don’t start counting things.”
I pulled my hand away before hers reached it.
That hurt her. Her mouth pulled down, and for one ridiculous second I wanted to apologize for moving my own hand.
Dad picked up the phone.
“Just come stand beside your brother.”
“After he apologizes.”
Nicolas leaned back.
“So the photograph depends on me saying what she wants.”
“It depends on you taking back what you said.”
Camila looked between us.
“Can’t you both just say sorry?”
“What would I be saying sorry for?” I said.
She opened her mouth, then reached for her cup.
Dad stared at the screen of his phone.
“Your mother wanted one photograph.”
“So did you,” I said.
“Yes. I did.”
“Then ask him.”
Nicolas stood and moved beside Mom.
“Come on. We can at least get one with us.”
Dad stayed where he was.
I waited for him to put the phone away.
He took a step back.
Camila stood reluctantly. Nicolas placed his arm behind Mom, then held his other hand toward his wife.
They made a space for her.
There was still room beside Mom.
I could have walked into it. I could have swallowed the apology I hadn’t received and smiled with my teeth pressed together. I’d done harder things at work.
Dad raised the phone.
“Mariah?”
“Not like this.”
He lowered it an inch.
Nicolas sighed.
“Dad. Please.”
Dad took the picture.
The little sound from his phone was barely anything. I’d heard it hundreds of times.
I sat down.
Mom moved out from under Nicolas’s arm.
“We’ll take another.”
I creased the napkin once, then again. I couldn’t get the corners to meet.
Nicolas leaned over Dad’s shoulder to see the picture.
“That’s good,” he said. “Send me that one.”
I was still sitting at the table when they checked whether I’d been successfully left out.
The chair against the wall
After the photograph, I moved my chair back.
Mom stood immediately.
“I’ll walk you out.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Then where are you going?”
I pointed to the chair’s back leg. It was caught against the one behind it.
“About four inches.”
She sat down.
Nicolas rubbed his hands over his face.
“This is exhausting.”
I’d used two days of leave to be there. I’d changed travel plans to make the ceremony. My brother had survived the ordeal of hearing his sister say no and needed a rest.
Wesley pushed his bowl aside.
“Nicolas, apologize.”
My brother turned toward him.
“With respect, you don’t know our family.”
“I heard what you said.”
“You heard one part.”
“I was sitting beside you.”
Nicolas’s eyes went to my face.
“Enjoying this?”
“No.”
“Then tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
“That we’re fine.”
I couldn’t give him that. My mouth wouldn’t even make the shape.
Dad put the phone facedown.
“Nobody thinks you don’t have an important job, Mariah.”
“Nicolas said I was pretending.”
“People say things.”
“Then he can say something else.”
Nicolas looked toward Wesley again.
“She could have handled this without the performance.”
Wesley started to speak.
I raised one hand, then put it down. I didn’t want another order in the room. I wanted one member of my family to answer the thing I’d actually said.
“Mom?”
She pressed her fingers against her bracelet.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Ask him to stop.”
“He has stopped.”
“He just called it a performance.”
She looked at Nicolas.
He studied his fork.
Her attention settled on my face.
“Maybe you should go home tonight. We can talk on Sunday, when nobody’s upset.”
There it was. My dinner would stay on the table. My brother would stay in his chair. Mom would bring the argument to my house later, perhaps with flowers.
Dad didn’t object.
I looked at him until he looked away.
That was the worst minute.
Not the laughter. Not the picture. Sitting there while my mother asked me to remove myself so the evening could recover.
I put my bag on my lap.
Nicolas began to relax.
He reached for his tumbler.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll sort it out.”
He sounded generous. I wanted to knock the drink out of his hand, which would have improved his version of the evening considerably.
Instead, I opened my bag and took out my car keys.
Mom stood with my coat.
This time, I let her hold it.
Then I set my keys beside my plate.
“Sunday isn’t happening.”
Nicolas put his glass down.
Mom stayed standing.
“What?”
“You’re not bringing this to my house.”
Dad leaned toward me.
“Don’t punish your mother.”
I looked at the coat over her arm, then at the empty space beside Nicolas where I’d been told to stand.
“Who is leaving this table, Dad?”
Nobody answered.
So I stayed.
The words he wanted
Nicolas leaned forward.
“All right. What exactly do you want me to say?”
His wife looked at him.
He spread his hands toward me again, the same hands he’d used to introduce my pretend call sign.
“Go on. Give me the words.”
“Say what you know.”
“I don’t know anything. That’s the problem.”
“You know I’m an officer.”
He moved his mouth without answering.
“You knew before Wesley stood up,” I said.
“Of course I knew that.”
Mom lowered my coat.
“You knew?” she said.
Nicolas turned to her.
“Mom, everybody knows. She’s been in for years.”
“Then why did you say pretend?” Camila said.
He looked annoyed with her.
“I didn’t say she pretended to be in the Navy.”
“You called Kestrel Six pretend, Nicolas.”
“I was winding you up.”
“Why?”
“Because you get like this.”
I left the question there.
He rubbed his sleeve.
“Because you take everything so seriously.”
Wesley stayed in his chair.
No story came from him. Neither names nor places, no account of something I’d done that would make my family sit straighter.
Nicolas had known enough before supper began.
He’d known when he raised his hand and made me stand.
I moved my keys away from my plate.
“Tell them what I asked you beside the door.”
“You asked for an apology.”
“And what did you tell them?”
He glanced toward the door.
Mom put my coat on my chair, carefully this time.
“What did you tell us, Nicolas?”
“That she’d got upset.”
I shook my head.
Camila took her hand off her cup.
“You said you tried.”
“I did try.”
“To do what?” Dad said.
Nicolas stood so quickly that his chair hit the wall behind him.
“I am not being interrogated by my own family.”
Dad stood too.
“Your sister was.”
His own words
Nicolas stared at Dad.
“You were laughing ten minutes ago.”
Dad’s mouth opened.
Nicolas pointed toward the table.
“Don’t do that. Don’t all turn around now because he stood up.”
He meant Wesley.
And he was right about Dad.
Dad looked at me.
“I was,” he said.
Mom gripped the top of the spare chair.
“We didn’t know what was happening.”
“You knew I wanted him to stop,” I said.
Her fingers came off the chair.
Nicolas pointed at Wesley again.
“See? This is exactly what I’m saying. She’s got you all apologizing because of some story nobody’s allowed to hear.”
Wesley stood.
Nicolas straightened his jacket.
“You can sit down, Chief. I wasn’t talking about you.”
“You keep pointing at me.”
“Because this was a family joke until you made it something else.”
“You asked me to appreciate it.”
“I thought you’d understand.”
“I understood her when she told you to stop.”
Nicolas’s face reddened.
“I’ve never pretended to be anything. I’ve done my time. I’ve done everything I was asked.”
“Nobody here said otherwise,” Wesley said.
“My own father is standing there like I’m some disgrace.”
Dad put a hand against the table.
“Sit down and apologize to your sister.”
“You do it, then. You helped.”
Dad turned to me.
“I’m sorry I took that picture.”
My throat hurt.
He swallowed.
“You asked me to speak to him. I tried to get you to smile instead.”
Nicolas gave a hard laugh.
“Beautiful. So now I’m the only one.”
“No,” Mom said.
She moved around the table toward me.
“I picked up your coat.”
I nodded.
“I wanted you to make it easy,” she said.
She put a hand over her mouth, then dropped it.
“I’m sorry.”
Nicolas pushed his chair under the table.
“Well, this is nice. Everybody gets a turn except me.”
“You’ve had most of them,” Camila said.
He turned toward her.
She was crying, which startled him more than anything Wesley had done.
“Don’t you start.”
“I laughed,” she said to me. “I shouldn’t have.”
“It’s all right,” nearly came out of my mouth.
I bit the inside of my cheek instead.
She wiped her face with her napkin.
“You asked me to stop smiling,” Nicolas said.
“No. I pushed your elbow because people were looking. I was still laughing.”
She put down the napkin.
“I’m sorry, Mariah.”
Nicolas looked around the table.
“Are we finished?”
“No,” I said.
“What more do you want?”
“Your apology.”
“I’ve been trying to give you one.”
“Go ahead.”
He looked at Wesley.
“I shouldn’t have joked about her call sign.”
“Tell her,” Wesley said.
Nicolas faced me.
“I’m sorry the joke went too far.”
I stayed in my chair.
He pulled his jacket down.
“Mariah. Come on.”
Mom started to reach toward me. She stopped herself and put her hand on the back of my chair instead.
Nicolas looked at that hand.
Then he looked at Dad.
Dad didn’t rescue him.
“I knew you were an officer,” Nicolas said. “I knew you weren’t making it up.”
The tables near ours were quiet again.
He lowered his voice.
“I wanted to get a laugh.”
“The people who laughed could hear you before,” I said.
He looked toward them, then back at me.
“I said it was pretend to make you look stupid. I’m sorry.”
I put my napkin beside my plate.
“Thank you.”
He sat halfway, then stopped.
“So Sunday?”
“No.”
His face changed again.
“I just apologized.”
“I heard you.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Make other plans.”
Mom drew a breath through her nose. She kept her hand on my chair.
Nicolas turned toward her.
“You’re going to let her shut us out?”
“I asked your sister to leave supper,” Mom said. “I’m not deciding her guest list.”
“You and Dad were staying there.”
Dad looked at me.
“If you’ll still have us.”
I nodded.
Nicolas pulled his chair out again.
“So everybody comes except me.”
I looked at Camila.
“You’re welcome.”
She shook her head.
“I’ll give you that afternoon. But I’d like to call you.”
“All right.”
Nicolas stared at her.
Wesley picked up his tumbler and moved it beside his plate.
My brother stepped toward him.
“Can we talk for a minute?”
“About what?”
“Privately.”
Nicolas glanced at me.
I stood.
“No. Finish it here.”
His mouth tightened.
“I was going to explain that this isn’t how I usually am.”
Wesley looked at the space between my chair and the table, where Nicolas had made me stand.
“It was how you were with her.”
“You’re going to judge me on one dinner?”
“I sat through the dinner.”
Nicolas bent to pick up his chair where it had tipped against the wall.
Nobody reached to help him.
He set it upright and stood behind it.
“I said I was sorry.”
“Yes,” I said.
“So stop looking at me like that.”
I picked up my coat.
“Stop giving me reasons.”
The picture on Dad’s phone
We didn’t go back to eating.
Dad asked whether I wanted him to walk me to my car. He waited for my answer this time.
“Yes.”
Nicolas took a step toward us.
“Are you seriously all leaving?”
Mom lifted her bag from the chair.
“I’m going with your sister.”
He looked at Camila.
She stood.
“I’ll ride with your parents.”
“Our car is here.”
“You can drive it.”
He stared at her, then looked around as if there might be another wife at one of the tables who’d understand the assignment.
Camila put her hand on my arm.
“I’d like to walk out with you, if that’s all right.”
I nodded.
Wesley came around his chair.
Nicolas moved toward him at once.
“Chief, I hope this doesn’t change anything.”
Wesley stopped.
“I won’t pretend I didn’t hear it.”
My brother’s hand dropped.
There would be no photograph with Wesley that evening. Nicolas didn’t ask again.
Wesley turned to me.
“It was good to meet you in person, ma’am.”
“Mariah,” I said. “We’re leaving supper.”
He gave a small nod.
“Mariah.”
He held out his hand. I shook it.
Nicolas stood beside his chair while we gathered our things. For once he had nothing to announce.
At the terrace door, Dad took out his phone.
“I need to do something.”
I waited.
He opened the photograph he’d taken without me. Mom was between Nicolas and Camila, smiling the smile she used when a camera was waiting and nothing else could be managed.
Dad turned the screen toward me.
“I won’t send this around.”
“You don’t have to erase your son.”
“I’m not erasing him.”
He deleted the photograph.
Then he put the phone in his pocket.
“I want one you choose to be in.”
Behind us, Nicolas said my name.
I turned.
“We’re all right, though?”
He stood with both hands on the back of his chair.
I could have given him an easy answer. Everybody was waiting.
“We’re done for tonight.”
Outside the doors
Outside the club, Mom reached for my coat.
I held it tighter before I could stop myself.
Her hand fell.
“I was going to help you put it on.”
“Oh.”
She waited.
I handed it to her.
She held it open while I put my arms through the sleeves. My hair caught under the collar, and she lifted it out the way she had when I was small.
That did it.
I covered my face with one hand.
Mom put her arms around me. She didn’t tell me not to cry. She didn’t look back toward the terrace.
Dad stood close enough that his sleeve touched mine.
“I’m sorry,” Mom said again.
I leaned against her.
I wanted to say I was fine, because we were outside a club and somebody might come through the doors. Then the doors opened, someone passed us, and nothing terrible happened.
I cried anyway.
Camila waited a few steps away. When I looked up, she held out a tissue.
“I’ve made a mess,” I said.
“Of your face,” Mom said. “That’s washable.”
I laughed through my nose. It was a dreadful sound, but nobody offered to improve it.
Dad took his phone out.
“Not yet,” he said quickly. “Only if you want.”
I wiped my face.
“You’ll have to stand on the side where I haven’t cried my eye off.”
“Which side is that?”
“Apparently neither.”
Camila held out her hand for the phone.
Dad gave it to her.
Mom stepped beside me, then stopped.
“Is this all right?”
“Yes.”
Dad came to my other side.
For years, family photographs had involved somebody telling me to move closer to Nicolas, smile properly, lower my chin. Dad stood an inch away and waited until I caught his arm.
Camila lifted the phone.
“Ready?”
“Hang on,” I said.
I pulled Mom closer.
She put her hand over mine.
Camila took the picture.
Dad came around to look at it, but he held the phone where I could see first. My face was blotchy. Mom’s lipstick was on my coat. Dad looked as though somebody had explained him to himself and he hadn’t enjoyed it.
“That one,” I said.
He sent it to me.
My phone moved in my bag.
Mom kept hold of my hand as we walked toward the cars.
“Sunday?” she said.
“Sunday.”
“What time would you like us?”
It was such a small question.
I stopped beside my car.
“Come early.”
Dad reached for my bag, then left his hand open.
I put the strap into it.
Mom squeezed my hand.
“We will.”
If this one got to you, send it to someone who’s always been asked to keep the peace.
For more stories about family members being pushed aside and finding their strength, read My Son Visited My Grave Forty-Four Sundays in a Row and My Nephew Blocked My Seat Beneath My Wife’s Photograph. My Stepdaughter Sent Me Her Mother’s Cracked Flowerpot is another moving tale of strained family ties.
