“Do you work out? Oh, you must do something physical for a living. These arms are so lean and strong! Sorry for squeezing you, but I had to see. Aren’t they strong, Ginny?”
“Do you like football, Kai? New Mexico is playing Wyoming in the other room.”
“Come, sit down. We bought wine for the occasion.”
“I was just offering him beer.”
“Well, he can have wine. We don’t want him to think we’re white trash.”
“Actually, I’ll drink whatever you’re drinking,” Kai said to my dad.
“I knew you were a good man,” he replied while maneuvering his wheelchair over to the fridge. “I only offered you Bud as a test.”
Kai fielded their questions smoothly. Yes, he worked for a construction company in town. Yes, that was why his skin was so tan despite him having reddish hair. No, we didn’t meet when he whistled at me walking around downtown at my new job. Yes, we met on a dating app.
Once we sat down to eat, everything slowed down. Kai shot me a relieved look from across the table while biting into a piece of garlic bread.
“I love the idea of a family meal every Friday,” Kai said.
“Spaghetti Friday!” Mom said happily.
“It would be even cuter if you did it on the weekend,” Kai suggested. “Spaghetti Saturday, or Spaghetti Sunday. For the alliteration.”
“Ginny is always busy on the weekends,” Mom replied, glancing at me. “She never tells us what. Always so secretive. Though I suppose she’s spending weekends with you now, isn’t she?”
“Sometimes,” Kai said.Sorry, he told me with his eyes.
“Do you have any family traditions?” Dad asked him.
Kai stirred his spaghetti. “Nah, not really. We weren’t all that close, growing up.”
“But you are now?” Mom asked hopefully.
Kai smiled politely. “We are not.”
“It’s tough as you get older,” Dad said. “Keeping in touch, I mean. We’re lucky Ginny lives close by.”
“My parents live in Fort Perth, too,” Kai clarified. “We just never got close. Growing up, my mom didn’t really like my brother and me.”
“That can’t be true,” Mom interrupted. “A mother always loves her children, even if she doesn’t always show it.”
Kai listened quietly before answering. “My momnevershowed it. She resented us because she had to give up her career when we were born. I know this because she wasn’t shy about telling us that we ruined her life. Don’t get me wrong—she did all the things a mom should do. She packed our lunches and walked us to the bus stop. She cooked dinner at night and made sure we always had clean shoes. But just underneath the surface, that resentment never went away. She smoked heavily because in her words, smoking a cigarette was the most peaceful five minutes of her day. She later told me it was the happiest day of her life when I finally went off to college. Not because I was getting a degree, but because she could finally do whatever she wanted.”
I wanted to reach across the table and comfort Kai, before remembering that this was just his fake backstory. But my parents bought it.
“That’s awful,” my mom said, patting him on the hand. “A mother should never treat her children that way.” She smiled over at me.
“So you don’t see them at all, I assume?” Dad asked.
“I saw them a few months ago,” Kai said. “When my mom got lung cancer.”
My mom dropped her fork with a clatter. Dad froze with his beer halfway to his lips.
“The diagnosis made me angry.” Kai stared down at his food. “She smoked two packs a day. We told her it would happen. And she said that maybe that would be a good thing, because then she would be free.”
Holy shit, Kai,I thought.Dial down the dark backstory!
“I kept my distance for a while,” Kai went on. “My life is busy enough as it is without letting that affect me. And being around my mom still made me so, so angry. But then, about three months ago, Dad convinced me to visit her at one of her chemotherapy treatments. I told myself I was going to go once, make a quick appearance, and then I would never have to see her again. But when I got there…”