And then my wife said something that turned the whole night around.
“Keep saying that, Hesper. You’re going to need to remember it word for word quite soon.”
My mother went completely quiet.
So did I.
PART 2 — THE PLACE CARDS
I have to go back to the November, because the sentence my mother said in that doorway was not the first time.
There was a family thing at our house. About twenty-five people, my father’s side, for my uncle’s seventieth.
Amara had organised all of it. She had done the food, the room, the lot, and she had made place cards because there were three sets of relatives who do not speak.
She had the stack in her hand and she was going round the table putting them out.
And my mother took them out of her hand.
Not roughly. She lifted the stack away, squared the edges on the tablecloth, and started putting them out herself in a different order.
And she said, to twenty-five people:
“Give me that. My son bought every inch of this house. Don’t confuse being married to him with owning anything. Sit at the end.”
There was a laugh. My uncle’s wife, and one of my cousins.
