Chapter 2 - The Fallout Across the Linen
The tablecloth might as well have been a battleground.
Ryan looked genuinely hurt, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to process the sudden shift in atmosphere. Megan reached over and placed a reassuring hand on his arm, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock and morbid fascination.
"Emily, what are you talking about?" Ryan muttered, his voice dropping defensively. "Why are you making things weird? This was supposed to be about dinner with Megan's parents."
"Your brother is right, Emily," my mother hissed, her voice vibrating with suppressed fury. She leaned across the table, forgetting for a moment that federal judges and prospective in-laws were watching. "You just have to ruin everything, don't you? Whenever anyone else is celebrating something, you always have to turn the spotlight back onto your little drama. Always the victim."
"A victim?" I let out a short, humorless breath, resting both hands flat against the edge of the table. "Mom, I didn't bring up my work. Judge Harrison did. I didn't ask him to recognize me. You’re the one who spent the last two hours pretending I don't know how to read, write, or function outside of a filing cabinet."
"You write articles that make people uncomfortable!" she snapped back, her mask completely gone now. "You dig into things that aren't your business! Why couldn't you just be normal? Why couldn't you have taken that stable job at the insurance firm your uncle offered you in Indianapolis? You live in a cramped apartment in Chicago chasing scandals because you care more about strangers than your own family!"
"Because strangers don't hide my picture behind a plastic ivy plant, Mom," I fired back, the weight of thirty years of invisible resentment finally breaking through the dam.
Judge Harrison watched the exchange with the detached, clinical curiosity of a magistrate observing a particularly messy deposition. His wife looked profoundly uncomfortable, staring down at her untouched dessert fork.
My father finally cleared his throat, lifting his head. His eyes were tired, lined with the exhaustion of a man who had spent decades playing Switzerland in a war he had long since given up trying to win.
"Grace," my father said softly, using my mother’s first name for the first time all evening. "That’s enough."
Mom whipped her head toward him, stunned. "Arthur? You’re telling me to be quiet? After she deliberately humiliated us in front of the Harrisons?"
"She didn't humiliate us," Dad said quietly, standing up from his chair. "We did that ourselves a long time ago."
The dining room plunged into an even deeper, more suffocating quiet. Nobody moved. Dad pushed his napkin aside, looked at Judge Harrison with a grim nod of apology, and then looked at me.
"Your mother and I have some things to discuss," Dad said, his voice heavy. "Emily... maybe you should take a walk. Clear your head."
May you like
I grabbed my navy blazer from the back of my chair, slid my arms into the sleeves, and walked out of the dining room without looking back.
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