Chapter 4: Papers at Family Meal

Family meal at Kral is on Mondays at three.

The whole staff sits at one long table in the dining room while Dominik carves something.

I had been to it every Monday for seven years.

On the fourth Monday of October I came in the front door.

I had a lawyer's envelope under my arm and a man in a gray jacket behind me.

"Is that her?" the man said, very quietly.

"That's him," I said, and pointed.

Thirty people were sitting down to roast pork and potatoes.

Dominik stood at the head of the table with a carving knife in his hand and his sleeves rolled to the elbow.

Beside him sat his mother, in her good navy cardigan, with her handbag in her lap.

She came to family meal every Monday to watch him.

Lena sat three seats down, with her hand around a glass of water, and she saw me before anyone.

The room went quiet in pieces, table end by table end.

"Hal," Dominik said.

He put down the knife.

"I'm not here to eat," I said.

The man in the gray jacket stepped around me.

"Dominik Kral?" he said.

Dominik looked at him with his mouth a little open.

"You've been served," the man said, and put the envelope into his hand.

It was not a thick envelope, but it landed like one.

Everyone at that table saw it.

Thirty cooks, servers, dishwashers and bussers stared at the papers and then at me, and no one said a word.

The sous chef, a big quiet guy who had worked beside me for six years, put his fork down very slowly.

"Petition for dissolution of marriage," the man said to Dominik, politely. "Have a good afternoon."

He left.

Dominik opened the envelope with fingers that were not steady.

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