Page 67 of Just This Once

“You’re the only one sitting here alone.” Johnny places a possessive arm on the back of Emily’s chair. She offers him a smile, weak and mild. Johnny’s going to walk all over her.

“I don’t think so,” Lauren, my sister-in-law, snaps down at the other end of the table, taking the small plastic fork from her kid’s hand, gesturing for Robbie to do something since it looks like the toddlers—Kassidee and Everleigh—are about to start a food fight.

Mom comes to my defense, but it does nothing except circle the sharks. “Dante will find someone when he’s ready.”

Dad sniffs. “He’s thirty years old. If he’s not ready now, he never will be.”

“Statistically speaking, most people find their spouses in college,” Robbie says academically and completely unhelpfully since I’m the only one of us three who did not attend.

“But being thirty isn’t old,” Lauren adds, almost like she’s trying to convince herself she’s not old. Because if I’m old, then so is she. God forbid, we age.

The kids bang on the table, rattling the dishes, and Dad waves his fork in the air.

“The real problem is we’ve been babying him too much.”

My face flames hot, and I curl my fingers into afist, sneering at Dad and then Johnny. “I think you’re right. You have been babying Johnny too much. Poor guy’s never done a full day’s work in his life. How will he ever learn?”

“Fuck you. I do more for the company than you’ve ever done.”

“No fighting at the table,” Mom chimes in. “It’s Thanksgiving.”

I split my ire between my father and younger brother. “While you sit in an office all day, I’m the one in the field. I’m the one doingrealwork. You would be nothing without me, and I’m getting real goddamn tired of having to defend myself.”

“We’d be nothing without you?” Robbie says, wiping mashed potatoes from his sweater, an attack from one of his kids. “That’s a bit hyperbolic, don’t you think? I was the one who helped Dad expand it from Grandpa’s side hustle to an actual corporation.”

Mom flaps her hand. “Yes, you’ve all done a lot to help. Now, let’s move on. Lauren, you said you were going to put the girls in gymnastics?”

“Oh yeah, your big math brain, crunching ones and zeros all day, is what’s keeping us in business. You’re an overpaid accountant.” I slap my hand to my chest. “Imanage all the sites. I keep us on schedule. I’m the one bringing in new clients because you all and your lunch meetings sure as shit aren’t. People want to book with us because of me and my work, not because of you!” I can’t help the rise in my volume. Hearing Taryn speak about me the other night has unleashed something in me that I can’t and don’t want to rein in. “I’d really appreciate some acknowledgment every once in a while.”

Across from me, Emily has melted into her chair while Lauren is full-on fighting with her kids to stop them from climbing over her and the table. Robbie is silently fuming like he can’t believe I’d actually tell the truth, while Johnny’slooking to our father for help because he knows I’m right. He barely does anything. He’s a yes-man to Dad, who balls up his napkin and throws it on the table, pointing his stubby finger at me, the one he nearly lost in an accident years ago with a saw. I was the one who wrapped a towel around it and drove him to the hospital so he didn’t lose it completely. “You ungrateful little shit. You should be lucky I keep you employed. Don’t come into my house and tell me I need to show you appreciation. I am your father and your boss. You are nothing without me and what I gave you.”

Yeah, that’s right. Whathegave me. Not like Mom had any hand in raising me. Not like I became who I amdespitehis lack of faith and confidence in me.

And I’m suddenly not very hungry anymore. I stand up so fast, my chair falls backward, but I don’t bother picking it up. Mom watches slack-jawed as I grab my coat from the closet, but when she stands to come to me, I hold up my hand. “Not now. I need to get out of here.”

Her eyes well with tears, and she nods silently. I’m texting Taryn before I’m even out the door.

Where are you right now?

Duchess

At my brother’s. Why? What’s up?

I need to talk to you

Duchess

Ok? Is everything all right?

not really

Duchess

Come to Griffin’s. Dinner’s almost ready.

She sends me a pin as I put on my helmet then rev myengine extra long just to piss them all off inside. The drive is about fifteen minutes to a development of homes probably from the ’80s or ’90s, all of them built in the exact same way, with siding and stone, attached double garages, and neat front yards. I park my bike behind a row of cars out front of the house with an American flag, mums in pots, and a big yard sign that readsMy favorite season is the fall of the patriarchynext to a bunch of turkeys stuck in the grass.

After I ring the doorbell, a woman about my age answers, smiling widely with long light-brown hair, ripped-up jeans, a sweater falling off her shoulder, and bare feet. “Hi, you must be Dante. Come in.”

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