Chapter 18: Seat at the Table

My mother cooked.

By six there was a pot roast, mashed potatoes, green beans with bacon, and two pies cooling on the windowsill.

Ivy arrived first, in her scrubs under her coat, and hugged me so hard my ribs creaked.

"I'm sorry about the iPad," she said into my hair.

"Don't be."

"I'm a little sorry."

"Be a little sorry, then. Thank you anyway."

Tobias came in behind her, holding nothing.

He had taken me literally.

My mother looked at his empty hands and said, "You could have brought a bottle of wine, for heaven's sake."

"Lena said not to bring anything."

"She meant don't bring an apology."

"Mom."

"Sit," my mother said. "Anywhere."

Tobias stood at the edge of the dining room and looked at the table.

There were five chairs.

My father's chair at the head, my mother's at the foot, and three along the sides.

He waited, the way he'd waited in the car for an hour.

I pulled out the chair on my left and put my hand on the back of it.

"Here."

He sat.

Ivy dropped into the chair across from him and grinned at me.

"Look at that," she said. "A man who can follow directions."

"Ivy."

"I'm only saying, he's very trainable."

"I'm sitting right here," Tobias said.

"That's what makes it funny."

My mother set the roast down and looked at the empty head of the table.

She didn't sit in it.

She put a plate in front of it anyway, and a glass of water.

"Your father likes a place," she said, to nobody, and sat down at her end.

We ate.

It was loud and ordinary, with Ivy telling a story about a man who had arrived at her ER with a salad fork in his ear.

Tobias laughed so hard he put his fork down.

I watched his face, and thought, I haven't seen that in a long time.

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