Chapter 1: No Secrets at This Table
“To family,” Greg said, lifting his glass of iced tea. “No secrets at this table.”
Everyone at his mother’s table raised a glass. Carol beamed at her son the way she’s beamed at him for forty-eight years. His sister Jill said, “Aw, Greggy.” Our nine-year-old, Owen, clinked his milk against my water so hard it sloshed.
I raised my glass too. I’ve gotten very good at raising my glass.
Greg sat back down beside Emma. She’s always beside him now. Sixteen, strawberry-blonde ponytail, maroon volleyball hoodie with BENNETT across the back.
“Pass the potatoes, Em,” I said.
She passed them without looking at me. She hadn’t really looked at me since August.
I should have let it go. I know that now. But on Friday, Kayla’s mother had stopped me by the bananas at the grocery store and said, “Wasn’t that tournament in Erie a haul? Kayla’s still sore.” Kayla had been in Erie all weekend. And on Saturday, Emma had told me she was at Kayla’s. All day.
“Em,” I said, as lightly as I could. “You weren’t at Kayla’s on Saturday. Where were you?”
The table went quiet the way tables do. Forks paused.
Emma set hers down. “Seriously? Here?”
“It’s just a question, honey.”
“It’s never just a question with you.” Her voice climbed. “Where were you, who were you with, did you text when you got there, did you empty the dishwasher—”
“Emma.”
“You’re so controlling!” She shoved her chair back. “No wonder Dad’s never home!”
Owen stared at his plate. Jill’s husband found something fascinating in his napkin. Carol pressed her lips together and looked at me. Not at Emma. At me.
Here’s what nobody at that table knew. Greg wasn’t never home because of me. Since March he’d been “staying late for budget meetings.” He’s the assistant principal at Emma’s high school, beloved Mr. Bennett, the man who runs the Thanksgiving food drive. He’d been “driving Emma to practice” and “watching the end of practice,” and coming home smelling like the gym and somebody else’s vanilla perfume.
I had noticed. For six months I’d noticed. And I’d said nothing, because Owen still sleeps with a stuffed dog, and because Greg’s whole family sits at this table every Sunday, and because I knew exactly who would get called crazy.
So I’d become the bad cop instead. Curfews. Chores. Questions. Greg became the fun one. A new phone in June. Concert tickets in August. A car promised for her seventeenth birthday.
Greg reached over and rested his hand on Emma’s shoulder. Then he turned his kind assistant-principal face on me.
“Honey,” he said softly, “let her breathe. She’s a good kid.”
Around the table, everyone nodded. At him.
“She lied to me, Greg.”
“Teenagers fib. We did too.” He smiled at his mother. “Right, Mom?”
Carol laughed. Jill laughed. The tension went out of the room like air out of a balloon, and somehow I was the only one left holding the string.
“Laura, honey,” Carol said, patting my hand, “you’re too hard on her. She’s at that age.”
I opened my mouth to answer.
Then Emma’s phone lit up.
It was lying face up next to her plate in its pink case. A notification. From where I sat I couldn’t read the name, only a single letter, a little volleyball emoji, and a red heart at the end of the preview.
Emma slapped it face down so fast the gravy boat jumped.
Nobody else noticed. Carol was already asking who wanted pie.
But I wasn’t looking at Emma. I was looking at Greg.
His eyes were locked on that phone. The color had drained out of his face, a muscle was jumping in his jaw, and his hand on our daughter’s shoulder had gone very, very still.
In nineteen years of marriage, it was the first time I’d ever seen my husband scared.
