Two days later, she invited us to dinner like nothing had happened.
“A family dinner, baby. To celebrate. Everything’s coming together.” She picked a steakhouse in Buckhead with leather booths, white tablecloths, and a wine list bound in cloth. I knew before we walked in what kind of card would pay for it.
We got there at seven. Owen wore his good shirt, tucked in, with his hair wetted down and combed. My mother was already seated in a navy dress and pearls. Kyle sat beside her in a sport coat over a T-shirt, his hair gelled.
Neither of them smiled.
Kyle is thirty-three. He’s tall and handsome in a soft, sulky way, with my father’s jaw and my mother’s habit of waiting for life to come to him. He’d sold cars, then air conditioners, then something he called “crypto consulting.” That spring, he was “exploring options” from my mother’s spare bedroom.
“Hey, Nat,” he said, without getting up.
“Hi, Kyle. Hi, Mom.”
“You’re late,” my mother said.
“We’re four minutes early.”
“Feels late,” Kyle said, and grinned at her. She laughed.
Owen climbed into the booth and folded his hands on the tablecloth the way I taught him. He opened his menu, and I watched his eyes go straight to the right-hand column, where the prices were. I watched his lips move as he read them.
I’d taught him that, too. God help me.
The waiter was a young man in a black vest with a nervous, polite smile. He read off the specials: a dry-aged ribeye, a Chilean sea bass, a bone-in filet for $68. My mother ordered the filet and a glass of Cabernet. Kyle ordered the ribeye and a whiskey. I ordered a garden salad and water. Owen ordered chicken fingers for fourteen dollars and a Sprite.
The waiter nodded, gathered the menus, and turned to go.
“Excuse me,” my mother said.
“Yes, ma’am?”
She gave him her best smile, the one she used on church ladies and car salesmen, and touched her pearls.
“Could you put her and the child on a separate bill?”
He hesitated. “Of course.”
“We’re not paying for them.”
The words dropped onto the white tablecloth and lay there.
My face went still. I didn’t look at her. I watched the little candle in the glass votive, the flame bending in a draft from the door.
“Just the two of them,” my mother said cheerfully. “We’ll take ours together.”
Kyle laughed. It wasn’t a cruel laugh, exactly. It was the easy laugh of a man handed a joke he didn’t have to write.
“She only brings the kid when somebody’s buying,” he told the waiter, with a shrug.
I felt Owen go stiff beside me.
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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