Grandfather fills the silence with talk of numbers and docks, his voice smooth, measured, noise meant to mask the absence of peace.
Beside me, Aoife sits straight as a blade. Her hands fold tight in her lap. The small brush of her arm against mine feels like a heartbeat trying to escape.
Marco and Milo sit across from us. Marco’s eyes never leave Father. Milo drinks too fast, the glass clinking each time it hits the table.
Only Grandfather looks alive in this room, but that’s because he built this kind of silence.
“So,” he says finally, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. “Matteo brought a guest.”
The words hit like the crack of a whip.
Father doesn’t move.
I clear my throat. “Aoife will be staying with us this weekend.”
The pause stretches too long before Grandfather smiles. “Good. I like to meet the people who make our blood run cold.” Maybe a joke. Maybe not, but I do the only thing I can think of, I smile.
Father’s fork doesn’t move.
Aoife says nothing, smart enough not to, but under the table, her fingers tap once against her thigh.
Dinner crawls on, half-words, forced laughs, questions that die midair.
I answer what I have to.
Pretend everything isn’t about to collapse.
Grandfather says, “It’s good to have something… new in the house.”
That’s when Father’s voice finally breaks the stillness. “New doesn’t mean welcome.”
It drops like a hammer.
Grandfather leans back in his chair, voice smooth as oil. The words hit like steel against marble. Aoife flinches. Barely. But I feel it.
I set my fork down. Quiet. Controlled.
Father doesn’t look up. He keeps cutting his food with surgical precision. “No? Then why is she here?”
Aoife shifts beside me, ready to answer. I rest a hand on her knee beneath the table. She shouldn’t talk, not yet anyway.
“Because I asked her to be,” I say.
Silence falls again, thick, stretching, alive.
Then Father looks up. When his eyes meet mine, they burn cold. Not fury. Worse.
Disappointment. The kind that rots slowly. The kind that says I expected more from my blood.
Grandfather hums into his wine, amused, as if he’s watching a performance he’s seen before.
Mother clears her throat softly. “We were all young once.”
Father’s gaze flicks to her, assessing, but he doesn’t reply.
I glance at Aoife. She’s holding herself together by threads.
When the plates are cleared and the last goblet drained, we move into the family room. Grandfather sits, cane on his knee. Mother is near the hearth, quiet and folded in herself. Marco lights a cigarette, Milo’s knee bounces in thin, restless rhythms, and he drinks his whiskey. Aoife stands by me, clinging to my side as if I could be her anchor.
