Chapter 5: The Apple

"The portal is broken, Russ," Mom said. "Colt told you."

"Then he'll bring the paper grades to my birthday dinner," Dad said.

"At my sister's? In front of everyone?"

"Saturday. Seven o'clock. I'm fifty-eight years old and I'd like to see my son's report card."

He turned around at last and looked at me.

"Mal, you're coming."

"She is not welcome," Mom said.

"It's my birthday, Diane, and I'll invite who I like."

I thought of the yellow note in my locker.

"I'll sleep on it," I said.

He smiled for the first time all day, and it broke my heart.

I texted him the next morning: "Yes."

My aunt's house on Saturday night held sixty people.

Cousins, great-aunts, two uncles, a deacon from my mother's church, folding tables with paper tablecloths down the length of the living room.

I walked in holding a card and a pie.

Every conversation in the room dipped.

"Well," said my aunt, my mother's sister, "you came."

"Hi, Aunt."

"We weren't sure you'd show your face, after how you treated your poor mother."

"What did she tell you I did?"

"Oh, honey, let's not do this at a party."

A woman I had known since birth slid her chair a foot away from mine.

Somebody whispered, "She cut off her own father's medicine."

I had not cut off one pill.

I set the pie on the dessert table and sat down at the end of the long table, where Dad had saved me a seat.

Mom sat across from me and smiled with all her teeth.

Colt sat beside her in a clean shirt, with his eyes on his plate.

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