Page 137 of Beyond Protection
"Sit," Ma commanded when she'd loaded the table. "Everyone. Now."
We sat. I ended up between Mac and Michael, wedged into a space that barely contained my shoulders. Mac's thigh pressed against mine—deliberate. Grounding himself.
The table groaned under the food. Roast beef, thickly sliced, potatoes in cream sauce, green beans with almonds, glazed carrots, and golden-brown rolls.
"I made too much," Ma said, standing at the head of the table. "I always make too much. You'll take leftovers."
"Ma—" Marcus started.
"You'll take leftovers," she repeated. Firmer. "I don't want to see any of this food tomorrow. You're going to come back hungry, and I'm going to feed you again. That's how this works."
The subtext landed hard.You're coming back.Not a hope. A command.
"Yes, ma'am," Michael said quietly.
Ma sat. For a moment, nobody moved. Then Marcus picked up the serving fork. "Well, let's not let it get cold."
The table came alive. Plates passed hand to hand. Voices overlapped—requests for butter, comments on the roast, Marcus telling a story about a fire call that went wrong in ways that were funny now but probably terrifying at the time.
I took what Mac handed me: roast beef, potatoes, beans. My appetite had died somewhere around seventeen hundred, but I ate anyway because Ma was watching.
"You're quiet," Mac said beside me. Low enough that the others wouldn't hear.
"Thinking."
"About?"
"This." I gestured at the table. "All of you. How you do this."
"Do what?"
"Sit together before something dangerous and pretend everything's normal."
Mac's knee pressed harder against mine. "We're not pretending. This is how we cope. We show up. We eat. We remember why we're scared in the first place."
I looked around the table. Marcus cutting beef with careful concentration. Michael checking his watch every ninety seconds. Matthew pushing food around his plate. Miles and Claire both quiet, observing.
"Your family's loud," I said to Mac.
"Yeah."
"Mine wasn't. We ate dinner in silence."
"That sounds lonely."
"It was." I cut into the roast. The meat was tender enough to fall apart. "This is better."
Mac reached for my hand under the table. Squeezed once. Released.
"So, Eamon," Marcus said from across the table. "Michael says you used to do executive protection."
"Mostly. Some government contracts."
"Then you'll get it right," Ma said quietly. Simple. Absolute. "You'll move when you need to move. And you'll come home."
Michael caught my eye. Nodded once. Agreement. Faith.
"Besides," Matthew added. "Michael's going with you. And Michael's incapable of letting things go wrong."
