Chapter 2 #3
“Oh. No, no. I… should have come a long time ago.”
“He’s like his mother. Doesn’t take no for an answer.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Well, either way, we’re glad to have you. Bernice is absolutely tickled. She’s been cooking up a storm and talking about you all day. She was sure you’d change your mind.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded and mumbled something incoherent.
The show resumed, but before Heath could settle back in his chair, Tallus poked his head in. “Dinner’s on the table.”
Family meals never happened when I was growing up.
Dad often worked late or hit the bar before venturing home, stumbling in drunk and looking for a fight hours later.
On the occasions we did sit together at the table, the friction was unbearable, and no matter what I did, I did it wrong, be it slurping my milk too loudly, scraping my teeth over the tines of the fork, taking too large a helping of mashed potatoes or not enough, and didn’t I like my mother’s cooking?
I either ate too fast or too slow. If I said nothing at all, I earned a swat for being an unappreciative cunt—Dad liked that word and used the insult often enough I was immune.
If I mentioned the chicken was tasty, I earned another swat because it was fucking dry—as a cunt—and I was a moron for not realizing it.
I couldn’t win.
The relaxed format of dinner at the Domingos’ took a second to absorb.
It went against the grain. Everyone dove in simultaneously.
Heath wasn’t first. Heath didn’t demand to be first. Everyone served themselves, passing dishes, chatting, teasing one another, and laughing.
It was a clashing of hands and hearts. It was the essence of all those family sitcoms I’d watched growing up that had always felt too fantastic to be real.
It shouldn’t have surprised me.
Over a year and a half living with Tallus, and his motormouth colored every shared meal, but until this moment, I’d never seen it as normal.
Tallus had always been a chatterbox with a seemingly endless number of things to discuss, from the mundane to the intriguing.
He talked. I listened. With the growth of our relationship, I’d learned to take part on occasion, injecting my own commentary, albeit self-consciously.
The people in Tallus’s family conversed like it was an Olympic sport, often increasing their volume to be heard and trampling over one another’s sentences. No one took offense. No one shouted for silence or manners or respect. No one name-called or swore, except good-naturedly.
I let it wrap around me, taking comfort from Echo’s weight on my feet—she often positioned herself under the table while I ate, her body pinning me down. In the back of my head, my father pointed out every fault.
The table had been set with full glasses of white wine at every place setting. I wasn’t much of a wine drinker but indulged greedily. When I drained my helping too soon, Heath automatically refilled the glass without asking. I kept my head down, avoiding Tallus’s gaze, wallowing in shame.
When I drank at home, I usually did it when Tallus wasn’t around or after he’d gone to bed, so he didn’t witness my failures. It was another red flag. I wasn’t stupid. I knew the signs.
Bernice had roasted chicken and potato fingerlings with butter and herbs.
She’d baked acorn squash and made a fresh loaf of flaxseed bread that was still warm from the oven and instantly melted the butter.
The robust salad Tallus had helped create boasted tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, and feta cheese. The dressing offered a tangy zip.
Heath sat across from his wife, sharing about an upcoming fishing trip he was looking forward to with a male coworker he called Gus. Tallus informed him he expected a freezer full of fillets, and when was salmon season again?
Bernice talked about a film festival she was interested in attending, asking Tallus if he might want tickets. They spoke of reality TV shows. She inquired after his best friend Memphis, his coworker Kitty, and his paternal cousin Costa and his wife. “When’s their baby due again?”
“Any time,” Tallus informed his mother. “I think Tia was due last week.”
“That’s exciting, and it’s a boy?”
“That’s what they say.”
“You never know. The doctors have been wrong in the past. Keep me posted.”
Streams of praise over the food flowed between branches of conversation. I absorbed it all, content in a peacefully silent bubble until Bernice’s attention turned to me. “So, Diem.”
That was all it took. Two words, and the food in my mouth turned to ash.
“Tallus tells me you’re throwing your grandmother a birthday party.”
“Y-yes. Well, no. Um, Tallus is doing the planning. End of the month. She’ll be ninety-three.”
“Isn’t that something. Ninety-three.”
“Hope I live that long,” Heath said.
Tallus, thankfully, explained our plans—his plans—and went over the finer details of the event. I sank into the background, my heart calming.
I was grateful for the rescue, but it was short-lived. Bernice propped her elbow on the table, chin cupped in her upturned palm. “So, Diem.”
I swallowed the stone in my throat.
“Did you know that you are Tallus’s first serious boyfriend?”
“Mom, don’t.”
I glanced at Tallus, who seemed more annoyed than embarrassed.
“I did.”
“You’re quite a bit older than him, aren’t you?”
“I’m… Ah…”
“Mother, you promised you wouldn’t give him the third degree.”
Bernice tsked and turned to her son. “How is asking him how old he is giving him the third degree?”
“Just don’t. We talked about this. You’re making him uncomfortable.”
“I’m not.” Bernice waved Tallus off. To me, she said, “You’re not uncomfortable, are you, Diem?”
“No, ma’am. B-bernice. I’m thirty-six.” I reached for the recently refilled glass of wine and drained it, cheeks heating. Was that too old? Tallus was a lot younger. Too young? I hadn’t worried about it before.
Heath—a man I had a sudden urge to hug—refilled my wine.
“Thirty-six. Nope. That’s not too old. I told Tallus you might change your mind yet. It takes longer for young men to come around to these things sometimes.” She patted my hand. “You’ll get there.”
“Get where?”
“Mother—” Tallus snapped, a knife’s edge to his tone. “Stop it.”
Baffled, glancing between mother and son, I asked again, “Get where? What things?”
“Weddings, sweetheart. Tallus tells me you don’t plan to get married. It’s a shame, really. It doesn’t have to be a fanfare, if that’s what you’re worried about. It can be simple. Weddings are…”
I didn’t hear the rest. The single word banged and clanged like the bells announcing the ceremony itself, and it took everything in me to keep my food down.
I barely registered Tallus’s raised voice, stating, “Enough. I hope you’ve enjoyed dinner with Diem, Mother, because I can guarantee he will not be returning in this century. What part of ‘Don’t give Diem the third degree’ and ‘Don’t bring up weddings’ didn’t you understand? I thought I was clear.”
“What third degree? It was a simple observation. I wasn’t saying that he should—”
“Bern,” Heath interrupted, “how about you tell Tallus about the book Jackie wrote? Maybe he’ll go to her signing with you.”
“Oh.” Bernice smacked Tallus’s arm, spinning to face him. The perilous wedding inquisition was immediately forgotten. “You remember Jackie Huntersville, who I met at that Women Over Forty workout group I joined last year? She wrote a book. Isn’t that fantastic?”
My near miss with the freight train left beads of sweat on my upper lip and prickled sleeves of gooseflesh down both arms. The bite of chicken I’d been chewing when the warning lights blazed was a lump of mush in my mouth.
I wasn’t sure I could swallow it without choking, which was probably how I ended up with my wine in hand. Chugging. Again.
The stem of the glass was too fragile for my death grip hold, so after draining it, I set it down.
Heath leaned in, lowering his voice. “Bernie means well, but my wife doesn’t have much of a filter. Don’t take offense.”
My boyfriend didn’t have much of a filter either, so the unchecked commentary shouldn’t have surprised me. The longer I watched mother and son together, the more I realized how alike they were, in looks and personality. Bubbly. Verbose. Expressive. Talkative.
Tallus seemed to have forgotten his mother’s comments, and they spoke animatedly about Bernice’s friend and her book signing.
“Do you fish?” Heath asked as mother and son made plans to meet up later in the week for Jackie Whoever’s event.
“Never been.”
“No kidding? Your dad never taught you to fish? Bah. City kids. They don’t get out enough.
I get it, but my god. You need to experience the wilderness, son.
Leave the chaos of this world behind and head somewhere peaceful and serene.
You’ll thank me. Fishing is exactly the kind of sport you’d love. ”
His use of the word son again made me falter. I was no one’s son. And how did Heath know I would love fishing?
“You should tag along sometime. Nothing but a tranquil lake, the chirping birds, and plenty of fresh air and sunshine. Believe you me. It’s like hitting the reset button on life. No one for miles to get in the way. Just you, me, and nature.
The idea sounded ridiculously appealing, except for the part where I had to hang out with a man I barely knew, and it wasn’t like I needed another father. Fuck. Leroy was plenty enough for one lifetime.
“I… don’t have gear for fishing, but thank you. It was a kind offer.”
“Well, I’ve got an extra pole and more than enough in a tacklebox to share.
Tallus never took to fishing. God knows, I tried teaching him as a teen, but he had no patience.
I’d be happy to show you the ropes. No pressure.
I’ll be heading to the lake with a buddy soon, but you and I can do our own thing another time.
Plan a weekend trip if you’d like. Father and son.
You don’t mind if I call you that, do you? ”