Chapter 16: Dinner at Dad's

My father made meatloaf, because it was the only thing he cooked when he was frightened.

Bea sat at his kitchen table in her duck pajamas.

She had come straight from her apartment without changing, and she did not apologize for it.

Rafe stood in the doorway holding a bottle of wine, looking like a man who had never been invited to a family dinner.

"Sit," Dad told him.

"Mr. Tarrant, I should say."

"Cliff. Sit. You're in my kitchen, and you're bleeding my daughter's bank account, so you can eat my meatloaf."

"Dad," I said.

"I'm joking." He wasn't, quite. "Do you take ketchup?"

"I take whatever I'm given," Rafe said.

"Good answer."

Bea snorted into her water glass.

We ate.

Dad asked Rafe how old he was, and what his mother did, and whether he had ever been married, and Rafe answered each question plainly, one at a time.

"Thirty-six. She taught high school math. No."

"Why not?"

"I was busy."

"Doing what?"

"Making money so I could ruin a man," Rafe said.

My father put down his fork.

Then he started to laugh.

It was the real laugh, the one I had not heard since the accounts were emptied, and it shook the table.

"I like him," he told me.

"Dad, you've known him for six minutes."

"I've known men for sixty years. He's the first one who didn't say what he thought I wanted to hear."

Bea raised her glass at Rafe.

"Welcome to the family," she said. "Don't hurt her. I know a lot of people with cameras."

"I've noticed," Rafe said.

Under the table, his knee touched mine.

It stayed there.

I kept eating meatloaf with a perfectly straight face, and I felt Bea look at me, and I knew she knew.

My father's phone rang on the counter.

He glanced at the screen.

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