My mom was shaking her head. “What do you expect them to do?”
“Something! Anything!”
I noticed a king cake on the table, purple, green sugar, drizzled with cream. Aunt Lisa passed me a slice. “So what’s going on with the job search, Joel?”
He picked through his cake but didn’t eat it. “I’m looking.”
“How about unemployment benefits? That’s the least you could do.”
His head snapped up. “Don’t you know it’s all backed up in this city ’cause of the firings?”
“Well, Dori says you’re not trying hard enough. Who’s lying?”
“Don’t start,” my mom said.
The two of them stared at each other. Auntie Lisa blinked slowly as if insulted but demonstrating restraint, then turned to me. “You’ve gotten so big, look at you, looking just like your mama.”
I didn’t know what to say so I said, “Thanks, I guess.”
“When’re you leaving, Lisa?” my dad asked.
My mom said, “Joel,” then stood to rinse off her plate. She took my father’s too, scraping his half-eaten cake into the garbage disposal. Briefly, she turned and stared at me, shaking her head before returning her attention to the dishes. This wasn’t any different from how she’d expressed disappointment in me before, but that day it pissed me off.
“Why do you keep shaking your head? Just say what you have to say.”
“I already said what I have to say.” I thought that was going to be it, but after a pause, she said, “I just don’t understand why you would mess up a good relationship over something silly.”
“I know you don’t understand.”
Her voice softened. “Baby, it’s normal to want to explore. But at some point, you’ve got to commit.”
“I can commit and explore.”
She laughed curtly. “You’re too young to understand anything.”
This incensed me. Maybe I was young and didn’t understand, but I knew things about myself she could never know. “Aren’t you exploring?”
She didn’t flinch like I’d hoped. “I don’t know what that’s meant to mean.”
“Who’s Sam then?”
There was a slight pause, a stutter, before she reached for a dishrag to dry a plate. My aunt reached over to touch my hand, a warning. I yanked it back.
“You need to let that go,” my mom said.
“Why? Because you’re having an affair?”
My mom crashed the plate into the sink. “Do you know what the fuck is going on in this city right now? In this country? Every day it’s something new, some new bullshit. I’m at work terrified the whole time that I’m gonna be fired—I can’t even do my job. But I have to. Why? Your dad doesn’t have a job. Areyougonna step in? I’m over here trying to figure out what we’re going to do if there’s a recession and you’re asking me about some stupid man.”
It was skewering, the shame I felt then. But there was something off still, like what she was saying was true but not the truth. My dad must’ve sensed this too because he watched her silently, more alert than I’d seen him in months. Years.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
But it was my dad who spoke next: “Who the hell is Sam?”
My mom opened her mouth, then closed it. Turning away from us, she leaned slightly over the sink, the wisps at the nape of her neck trembling with the rest of her.
My dad rose abruptly, storming into the hallway. I looked at my mom, rattled, but she was frowning at the broken plate in the sink like everything was the plate’s fault. My aunt rushed over, grabbing her by the shoulders to steady her. I longed to go back in time and say nothing.
