“Over one isolated text exchange?”
Robert leveled a glare at her that I hadn’t witnessed since I was caught forging a report card in the seventh grade. “It is not an isolated incident. It is a calcified pattern of behavior. I merely caught the manuscript this time.”
Diane finally stepped off the sidelines. “Robert, this theatrical display has gone on long enough.”
“No,” he disagreed softly. “We are just getting started.”
Her voice plunged to absolute zero. “You are humiliating us.”
A dark, cynical laugh bubbled in my throat. My father heard it.
“Do you even possess the vocabulary to define humiliation, Diane?” Robert asked. Her mouth clamped shut. He gestured toward the foyer. “Humiliation is exiling your own flesh and blood into the cold while you feast. Humiliation is forcing a child to ask why her grandmother hates her. You didn’t protect the peace. You protected your ego.”
He pointed at the vacant chairs. “Sit. All of you.”
It was a military directive. Slowly, as if the mahogany chairs were laced with electric currents, they complied. Jason sank beside Melissa. Ben shoved his phone into his pocket, his eyes glued to his empty plate. Diane assumed her position opposite Robert, though she kept one foot braced against the floorboard, desperate to preserve the illusion that she could walk away.
Robert retrieved the carving knife. The sheer, suffocating absurdity of the moment nearly split my mind in half. In absolute, terrifying silence, he carved the poultry. He plated the meat as if this were a functional family attempting to redeem their sins through adequate portion control. He served Lily, then me. Diane refused to accept a plate.
“Eat,” Robert ordered me quietly. So, I picked up my fork.
The acoustic landscape of the room was a nightmare of forced normalcy. The scrape of silverware. Ben muttering that the dinner rolls were stale. Melissa hyperventilating through her nose.
Then, Jason cleared his throat.
“I believe,” he began, navigating the minefield, “that emotions are running excessively high.”
Melissa whipped her head toward her husband. “That is your profound contribution?”
Jason didn’t flinch. He kept his gaze locked on the table. “I am attempting to de-escalate a catastrophe.”
“You should have attempted that hours ago,” Robert noted dryly.
Jason looked up, and to his eternal credit, he didn’t feign innocence. “You are correct, sir.”
Melissa’s eyes bugged out. “Excuse me?”
Jason rubbed a trembling hand down his face. He was historically an accommodating, passive man who allowed Melissa to dictate the architecture of his life. But tonight, a profound, aging exhaustion radiated from his bones. “I told you this was a catastrophic idea, Melissa.”
“No, you didn’t!”
