Chapter 7: The In-Laws’ Quiet
Richard found a way to intersect with me at a hardware store two towns over—an accident that felt arranged.
He stood in the lumber aisle with a cart that held nothing and said he hoped there were no hard feelings. He had enjoyed the party. He had not understood the structure of the help. I selected the screws I came for and let him talk until the talk thinned.
“You stood and accepted the credit,” I said. “You didn’t have to announce a correction from the island. You only had to not nod along. That was available to you in the moment.”
His face flushed in patches. “Ethan put us in an awkward position.”
“He put us in a recorded lien,” I said. “Awkward is a softer word than accurate.”
May you like
I paid for the screws and left him with the pine boards. Elaine sent no more cards. Distance, once established by a bank notice, proved easier to maintain than the false closeness of shared applause.
Margaret, farther into recovery, said she missed the idea of a bigger table and not the reality of being invisible at it. We practiced smaller tables—neighbors, a cousin, the baby on a Saturday afternoon. Laughter returned without a host’s need to manage whose parents looked more impressive.
