Chapter 24: Halvorsons

On Sunday I went to dinner on my own terms, and I had written them down.

They were on an index card in my jacket pocket.

One: I leave when I want to.

Two: my phone stays on Do Not Disturb, and nobody calls me from the next room.

Three: I am a guest, and I do not carry the potatoes.

Dot drove me over in the Buick with a pie on her lap.

Mom had invited her, and Dot had said she would come if the table had a stool at it.

Mom had found a stool.

It was a piano stool, and Dot sat on it at the end of the table with her stopwatch next to her water glass.

"Grace is two minutes," she said. "Mrs. Halvorson, you may begin."

"We don't say grace," Mom said.

"Then it's a short dinner."

Everyone laughed, and I noticed that nobody looked at me before they did.

Dad sat at the head of the table in his shirtsleeves, with the gold sunglasses folded next to his plate.

He had worn them to every meeting that week, and tonight he had taken them off.

His phone sat beside them, and at six-thirty it chirped once.

"Eat," said the recorded voice.

"I know," said Dad, and he picked up his fork.

Nobody at the table moved.

Not Mom, not Colin, not June.

I saw my own hand twitch on the tablecloth, and I put it flat under my napkin and let it stay there.

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