I look out the window and think,my father does not do that for anyone.
We turn into the drive, through the gate, and the house is lit up gold in the morning light. There are two cars I don’t recognize parked along the side and room left for a dozen more. By dinner, the lawn is going to look like the players’ lot at his arena.
He parks, kills the engine, and doesn’t get out.
“Sweetheart,” he says.
“Yeah, Dad?” I look over at him.
“Your mother’s a little nervous today.”
So am I, Dad, I think. So am I. “About what?”
“She’s just wound up. But she’ll be happy to see you. Make sure you make time to talk with her privately later.”
I swallow the unease that shoots through my stomach. “Okay.”
He climbs out, pulls my bag from the back, and hands it to Stanley. Then he sets his hand on Stanley’s shoulder and leaves it there.
“Welcome home, son.”
Stanley nods.
And I stand on the driveway I grew up on and watch my father lift his hand off my fake boyfriend’s shoulder and think about how he has never once called anyone son.
I swallow it, the whole jagged thing, and I walk to my own front door with my pulse going in my ears.
The smell reaches the porch before the door does. Brisket. Turkey. Cornbread. The brown-butter thing my mother does to the green beans that she will take to her grave before she explains. Coffee. And under it all, the candle she only ever burns on this one day, the one in the silver Tiffany jar that’s lived on the mantel since I was seven years old.
My mother is at the door before it’s fully open, in a soft brown sweater I’ve never seen, hair done, wearing the pearls my father gave her for their twenty-fifth.
“Sweetheart.” She kisses my cheek quickly. Then her voice lifts. “Stanley.”
“Mrs. Linwood.”
“Get over here, you.” And he does, and she wraps both arms around him and holds on too long. When she lets go, she keeps her hands on his shoulders and tips her head back to look up at him. “You look like your father.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Don’t you ma’am me. It’s Carolyn.”
“Carolyn.”
“Go on and get that shirt on. Robert’s in the den, your mother’s floating around here somewhere.” She turns to me and adds it like she’s reminding me to grab a coat. “And go say hello to yourfuture father-in-law, sweetheart. He’s been pacing a hole in my floor for an hour.”
I stop. Dead. “What?”
“Robert is in the den.” She’s already walking. “Go on.”
She’s gone, back into the steam and the noise of her own kitchen, and the worst part is that she isn’t joking. She’s already planning our wedding. I know it.
I turn, and Stanley is watching me. There’s no grin loaded behind his eyes. There’s no punchline. There’s just the two of us, hearing the same sentence at the same time, and neither of us reaching out to correct it.
“Should I put the pie in the fridge?” he asks, smooth as glass, as though my mother hadn’t just married us off in passing.
I take it from him. “Yeah.”
“Son,” my father calls from the hall, and my heart stops cold. Stanley’s grin snaps into place like it was never gone, and he goes loping off after my father like a dog called to heel, and I carry the pie into the kitchen alone.
