My sister extended one hand toward them. “Sit down.”
Her child lifted the plate with both hands. “Why? They didn’t do anything.”
I told the child they did not have to choose sides, but they carried the plate toward the small table anyway.
Dad pulled one of the folded chairs away from the wall and placed it beside my children. “Everyone eats together, or this dinner ends.”
My sister stepped into the aisle between the tables. “You’re embarrassing me in front of everyone.”
Her child set the plate beside one of the empty ones. “I’m staying if they stay.”
That should have felt like a victory.
It did not.
Four children had been forced to solve a problem created by three adults.
I reached into my pocket, removed Dad’s spare key from my key ring, and placed it beside his birthday card.
“Until you can treat my children like family without needing a public confrontation to remember,” I said, “you’ll have to make other arrangements.”
The room stayed silent long enough for the sound of the key settling against the tablecloth to be the loudest thing in it.
My sister looked at the key, then at my father, waiting for him to argue, to soften it, to say something that would let the evening slide back into the shape it had been before I stood up. He didn’t.
“Pick it back up,” he said instead.
“No.”
At my father’s 70th birthday dinner
