My In-Laws Toasted Me at Dad's Seventy-Fifth Birthday and Handed Me the Care Schedule, So Dad's Tablet Read Out Every Email They Never Opened novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Dish Schedule
At her father-in-law's seventy-fifth birthday party, the family toasts Jenna and hands her a laminated care schedule, and Craig announces Charlotte starts Monday, so Jenna says no; then Gene's tablet starts to read, over the VFW speakers, the first email his daughter never opened.
They clinked their glasses to my name, and then they passed me the dish schedule.
It happened at the VFW hall, in front of seventy people, under a banner I had hung myself at seven that morning.
HAPPY 75TH GENE, it said, a little crooked on the left, because the stepladder had wobbled.
My father-in-law sat at the head table in his good blue shirt with his speech tablet in his lap.
He had turned seventy-five that morning and had not said a word about it.
Gene had not said a word about anything in three years.
Near the back, Neil from his Tuesday and Friday therapy stood by the DJ's sound table.
He wore a clean shirt and held the end of a black cable.
Gene had invited him, and I had thought that was sweet.
I was behind the cake table with a knife in my hand and frosting up my sleeve when Tressa tapped her glass with a fork.
"Everybody, a quick toast before we cut the cake."
Tressa is Craig's older sister, and she has never in her life needed a microphone.
"We all know who really keeps this family running," she said. "To Jenna! The daughter-in-law who does everything!"
Seventy glasses went up.
Somebody whistled from the coat rack, and Rob's wife lifted her phone sideways to film it, mouthing, "So sweet."
I smiled, because that is what I do.
Then Tressa crossed the room, still smiling, and put a laminated page in my free hand.
"We made you a little schedule," she said, loud enough for the first six tables. "So Craig doesn't worry from Charlotte."
It was a grid with a clip-art sunrise in the corner.
Pills at seven, noon and six. Showers on Tuesday and Friday. Night duty, every night.
Every box said Jenna.
In the corner of Sunday there was a small gold star, and I understood that the star was me.
My husband stood up beside his sister with his beer.
Craig is warm and easy and everyone's favorite person at a party, and he knows it.
"I wanted to tell everybody at once," he said. "Charlotte starts Monday. A friend from the office is going to help me get settled."
I had known about Charlotte, but I had thought it was a plan for spring.
I had not known it was Monday, and I had not known about the friend.
"Dad's totally fine with the arrangement," Tressa told the room. "We're in constant touch with him."
Rob raised his bottle from the third table. "We email all the time, don't we, Dad?"
Gene looked at Rob for a long moment, and then he looked down at the tablet.
Something in my chest went quiet and strange.
Craig took my free hand. "You're the rock, Jen. We'd never go if we didn't know you had it."
I looked at the gold star.
I thought about three years of seven o'clock pills.
I thought about the farmhouse bedroom that was supposed to be for a few months.
I thought about the one Sunday in August I had slept until nine and woken up crying, sure I had missed something.
So I said no.
"No," I said, and I set the schedule down in the middle of the sheet cake.
The frosting took it in without a sound.
Craig's smile stayed where it was. "Jen. Not here."
"Where would you like me to say it?" I asked. "I'm not on the group text."
A few people laughed, and then they stopped.
"Nobody's saying forever," Tressa said. "It's a rotation."
"It's me, Monday through Sunday, with a star."
"You're upset, and you're making Dad's birthday about you."
Every head in the hall turned toward the head table, because that was the only place left to look.
Gene lifted one shaking finger from his lap.
He touched the screen of his tablet.
At the back of the room Neil pushed the end of the black cable into the DJ's board.
The flat, patient voice came out of every speaker in the hall.
We had picked it three years ago because it sounded the least like a robot dentist.
"Email one of forty-one," it said. "Tressa, Jenna has not had a day off in a year."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend