Chapter 3 - You Should Have Packed Food
Claire’s mother did not look surprised.
“You should’ve packed him something,” Patricia said.
For half a second, the room went still.
Then Eric’s wife, Dana, laughed into her wineglass.
Claire’s father, Leonard, studied the menu as though the prices had suddenly become fascinating. Noah’s cousins continued eating, uncertain whether they were allowed to acknowledge what had happened.
Eric sat down.
“Don’t start drama, Claire. He’s a kid. Kids like hotdogs.”
Noah whispered, “Mom, I’m not that hungry.”
Claire placed a hand on his shoulder.
He had been hungry in the car.
He had talked all afternoon about eating steak like Grandpa because he wanted to feel grown up at the retirement dinner. He wore the blue button-down Leonard once told him made him look handsome. He had spent an hour making a card with a hand-drawn fishing boat on the front.
Now he was trying to disappear.
Claire looked toward her father.
He had not even opened the card.
“Dad,” she said, “did you know they didn’t order for Noah?”
Leonard cleared his throat.
“Your brother organized dinner.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Patricia sighed.
“Why must you make everything tense?”
Claire looked around the table.
At the steak knives.
At the crystal glasses.
At Noah’s paper plate.
“I didn’t make this tense.”
Eric rolled his eyes.
“You always do this. Everything becomes a statement about how hard your life is.”
Claire smiled faintly.
“Noted.”
May you like
Eric mistook the calm for surrender.
That was his first mistake.
