Rebecca didn’t even look up. “Honestly, Claire, you should have fed them before coming here. The kids get so fussy.”
Her husband, Mitchell, chuckled into his iced tea. “Feed them first next time.”
I lifted my glass of water and took a slow sip. “Understood,” I said.
That was it. Nothing more. No one at the table heard the crack in that response, but I did.
We were at Bellamore’s, an Italian restaurant outside Columbus where my father loved to host “family dinners” whenever he wanted an audience more than a meal. Since my divorce two years earlier, those dinners had become a silent ritual of comparison. Rebecca was the successful one: the big house, the orthodontist husband, and two boisterous boys whom my father called “men of the future.” I was the daughter who had moved back to Ohio after my ex-husband emptied the savings account and disappeared to Arizona with his girlfriend.
I worked full-time at a physical therapy clinic, paid the rent on time, brushed my daughters’ hair every morning, and yet somehow I was still the family’s epitome of everything that had gone wrong.
My father, Russell Baines, believed that hardship was admirable only when it happened to other people.
“You can have some of mine if you’re hungry,” my Aunt Cheryl said weakly, sliding a breadstick toward my daughters.
Dad snorted. “For God’s sake, you’re not orphans.”
No one stood up to him. Not Rebecca. Not Mitchell. Not my brother Neil, who was still staring at his phone. Not even my mother, who had perfected the art of disappearing emotionally while remaining physically present.
Lily whispered, “I’m fine, Mom.”
