I came up from the basement.
Everyone stopped talking.
Vance was standing by the refrigerator in his work clothes. He was a tall, heavy-shouldered man with a soft face and a beard he’d grown since the wedding. He worked for a construction company, or he had, the last I’d heard. He looked at me and his face went a little red.
“Hey, Kate,” he said. “Welcome home.”
“Thanks, Vance.”
And then Chloe.
My little sister was sitting at the kitchen island in my grandfather’s old stool, the one he used to sit on to drink his coffee. She had one hand on her belly. She looked tired and pretty and very pregnant.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi, Chlo.”
“You look thin.”
“It was a long nine months.”
“Yeah.” She didn’t quite look at me. “Mom said you might be upset. About the room.”
“I’m not upset.”
That seemed to surprise her more than anything. She finally looked at me. Our eyes met. For a second, she looked like she was about to say something real.
Then my mother cut in.
“Of course she’s not upset. Kate understands. Don’t you, Kate?”
I looked at my mother.
“I understand a lot of things now,” I said.
My mother’s smile flickered. Just once. Then it came back.
“Well,” she said. “Dinner’s at seven. You’re welcome to join us, of course.”
You’re welcome to join us.
In my own kitchen.
“I’m pretty tired,” I said. “I think I’ll eat downstairs.”
I made myself a peanut butter sandwich at my own counter while my whole family watched me and didn’t say anything, and then I took it down to the basement and ate it sitting on the cot, with the unshaded lamp throwing hard light on the concrete.
