“Yes, it’s getting worse from what I heard,” Sloane adds.
Hadley draws in a deep breath.“Yes, I know.I spoke with her yesterday.”
“Poor girl has been stuck here, never able to go to college or make a life for herself, and then there are other people who just toss away how privileged they are.”
Hadley stares at her plate, her fork moving her mashed potatoes around.She scoops some potatoes on a spoon and holds it out to Tanner.
“I can do it,” I say.
“I want to.”Her eyes meet mine, and I can see it’s her way of having a diversion, so I allow her.
“And you’ve been with the Colts your entire career?”Margot interrupts.
“Eleven years.”
“Remarkable.”The word lands without any warmth.“And in eleven years you never thought about settling down before now?”
Whit reaches for the bread basket, eyeing me across the table.
“I hadn’t met the right person.”I look at Hadley when I say it.
She smiles, but there’s no color on her cheeks.We’re acting here, but I don’t feel as though I’m acting.
Margot follows my gaze to Hadley and back to me.“Of course.”She lifts her wine.“And Tanner.”
I feel the energy change in the room.
“He’s wonderful,” Hadley says quickly, and I hear the way she steps in front of the question as though trying to stop a freight train.
“Of course he is, I’ve seen the pictures.”Margot’s smile doesn’t waver.“I suppose what I’m wondering about is his mother.It must be quite a situation, not knowing?—”
“We’re working through it.”My voice is even and polite, just like my mother raised me to be.
“Of course.”Margot tilts her head.“It’s just that Hadley is now responsible for a child whose mother could appear at any time and completely disrupt?—”
“Hadley and I make decisions about Tanner together.”I gently set down my fork.“And whatever comes next, we’ll handle it together too.”
The table falls quiet.
Sloane glances at Margot as if her reaction were based on her mother’s.
Whit, to his credit, takes a quiet sip of his wine and says nothing, but I catch the corner of his mouth creep up.
Margot holds my gaze for a moment, and I don’t look away.I’m not rude about it.My dad would be proud of how not rude I’m being.But fuck if I’m going to back down.She’s not going to attack my family.
“Well,” she says finally, her tone recalibrating seamlessly, “it sounds like you have it all handled.”
“We do.”I pick my fork back up and glance at Hadley, who has put some small pieces of green beans on Tanner’s tray.
She looks as though she’s fighting a smile.
Whit steers the conversation to baseball, which I suspect is deliberate, and for the next twenty minutes, dinner is actually pleasant.He knows the game, asks good questions, and even Sloane thaws slightly when I tell a story about Foster and a bullpen incident involving a bird.
But I keep checking in on Hadley the entire night.Her demeanor is different at this table compared to ours.Shoulders higher, chin lower, laugh quieter.She’s not the Hadley whose smile lights up the entire room or does cute voices to Tanner that make him kick his feet.
She’s smaller here.Someone who learned a long time ago to take up less space, to try to go unnoticed.
I hate everything about it, and I want to kidnap her away from here, never to return.
