Chapter 24: Sunday Dinner

I typed back with my thumbs shaking.

The door's open, Dad. It's been open the whole time.

They arrived at six, in a rental car, with two suitcases and a loaf of bread wrapped in a towel.

My mother came up the porch steps first, in a travel coat that smelled like three airports.

She put her hands on both sides of my face and looked at me for a long time.

"You've cut your hair," she said.

"I haven't."

"Then you look different." She pulled me into her coat. "My brave girl."

"We watched the stadium video on a hotel television in Santiago, and your father cried into the soup."

"I did not cry," my father said, from the step. "There was onion."

Dane's father came out of the house, and the two men looked at each other.

Then they grabbed one another in a hug that lasted a long time.

Then they began insulting each other's hairlines.

Dane stood behind me on the porch with his hands in his pockets.

My mother turned to him, took a long look at the scar on his knuckles, and then at my face.

"So you're the cupcake," she said.

Dane took his hands out of his pockets.

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

"Good," my mother said, and kissed his cheek.

We sat down at the table at seven, all six of us, with the lamp lit and the window dark.

The dinner was Rory's, because the bet was paid, and it was a disaster.

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