“Mama, how did you get Daddy to agree to this?”
“I didn’t ask him to agree. I set the table for four and told him who was coming.” She removes the meat from the roasting pan and puts it on a serving tray. “He said that you made your choice, and that choice is a man he didn’t approve of. And I told him that choice is not going to cost me my daughter. Not over his pride. I’ve spent decades keeping that man comfortable. I won’t lose you to it.”
She says every bit of it with Viper standing right there in the doorway. She wants him to hear it.
I can’t speak. My mother has never once stood up to my father.
She squeezes my arm. “Now help me carry the food.”
The table is the same table. My father’s Bible sits beside his plate, same as every supper of my life, the ribbon marking whatever verse he’s loaded for the evening.
What’s different is the tattooed man across from me. The man I chose.
My father reaches for the Bible.
My mother lays her hand on the cover. “Grace will do tonight, Howell.”
He looks at my mother the same way he’s looked at me my whole life when I’ve disappointed him. She doesn’t look down. He does.
He says grace. It’s short. It might be the shortest prayer of his life.
We pass the potatoes. The roast. My mother carries the conversation, asking about my clinical hours, about whether the college parking situation has improved. Her eyes flick to mine on that one, because she’s seen the news footage, everyone has, andparking situationis the kindest possible phrase for it.
“It’s been handled,” I say.
My father sets down his fork.
Here it comes. I brace for the sermon he’s itching to give. I have a lifetime of practice sitting through it. Not tonight.
I wait for him to open his Bible, but he doesn’t.
He looks at me, and he asks one question.
“Are you safe?”
The whole table goes quiet. Viper doesn’t answer for me. My mother doesn’t smooth it over. The question hangs there, mine to take.
“Yes,” I say. “I’m safe. And I’m happy.”
He takes that in. His thumb runs the edge of the tablecloth. Whatever he was going to say next gets swallowed. I’ve spent my life swallowing things at this table. I never once watched him do it.
This is the point where I’d typically get a lecture.
But miraculously, he goes back to his plate and eats food I’d bet he can’t taste.
After a few minutes, he turns to Viper.
“Where will she live?” His mouth thins. “The clubhouse can’t be long-term.”
“We put in an offer on a house,” Viper says. “Three bedroom. Quiet street.” A pause. “It has a porch. She wanted the porch.”
“She always liked a porch.” My father says it almost to himself, like a fact he forgot he knew about me. “Her grandmother had one. She’d sit out there shelling peas with her until dark.”
“I didn’t know that,” Viper says.
My father nods and sets down his knife.
“Eden. Your tuition.” He looks at me, not Viper. “I’ll pay it. Taking your schooling from you was wrong. I knew it when I said it.”