Chapter 6: The Good Plates

My mother set the good plates.

That told me everything before I even sat down.

The good plates came out for funerals, Christmas and the pastor, and Linda Kruse used them tonight for a ham.

She had texted at four.

"Supper at six. Dee and Brandon are coming. We are going to clear the air like adults."

Maddie had read it over my shoulder in the school parking lot.

"I'm going," she said.

"You don't have to."

"I want Mom to hear him say it with her own ears."

So at six o'clock we stood in the dining room of the house we grew up in.

Over the sideboard hung the framed picture of our father in his co-op jacket.

Brandon was already in the chair next to mine.

He wore a sweater vest and the face of a man who hasn't slept for love.

Dee sat across from him with her hands folded.

"Girls," my mother said. "Sit."

We sat.

Nobody picked up a fork.

Brandon cleared his throat.

"I want to say first that I forgive everyone," he said. "Maddie is hurting. Han is hurting. I'm not here to blame."

My mother's eyes filled up instantly.

She loves a good speech.

"Brandon brought something," Dee said. "He didn't want to. I made him."

He slid the printouts across the tablecloth.

My mother put on her reading glasses and went down the gray column of Maddie's replies.

"Stop. Leave me alone. I'm telling Hannah."

I watched her lips move.

"Mom," I said. "Where are his messages?"

"That's not the point, Hannah."

"It's exactly the point. Look at the white side of the page."

"I'm not going to argue about paper at my own table."