And then his bike's gone down the gravel, and I'm standing in a quiet house that isn't mine, in a borrowed shirt.
For a second, this almost feels normal.
Then my phone rings.
My mother's name is on the screen.
I don't want to answer.
I look at it ringing in my hand, and I feel the hour of peace start to drain out through the soles of my feet because my mother doesn't call to chat.
My mother calls when she's been sent. "Hi, Mama."
"Sophia." She only uses my whole name when my father's in the room with her. "Your daddy and I would like you to come for supper tonight. Six o'clock."
It isn't a question and we both know it.
"Mama—"
"Six o'clock, Sophia. We have things to discuss as a family."
The line goes dead before I can find a reason to get out of it.
I stand in Njal's kitchen with the phone still against my ear, and I already know.
He knows. My father knows, and he's known longer than I have, and tonight's the night he finally says it to my face.
* * *
The house I grew up in smells the way it's always smelled—lemon oil, old hymnals, and my mother's roast.
It turns my stomach for the first time in my life.
I sat in my truck in the driveway for a full minute before I made myself come in, looking at the porch light my father replaces the second it flickers, the welcome mat my mother bleaches twice a year, the whole careful front of a family that has never once let the neighbors see a crack.
That's the thing about this house. Everything in it is arranged to be looked at.
My mother takes my coat at the door, squeezes my arm, and doesn't meet my eyes, and that's how I know it's bad.
My mother is a toucher when she's nervous.
She's got her hands all over me—my arm, my shoulder, smoothing my hair back the way she did when I was small and feverish—and not once does she look at my face.
We get through grace without anything happening.
My father's prayer runs long, the way it does when he's got something underneath it, thanking the Lord for the food and the hands that made it and the family gathered safely.
I keep my eyes open, and watch him over my folded hands, and feel the whole evening coiling like a spring.
We get through the roast and the corn pudding, through my father asking about the buildout at the coffee shop like he doesn't already disapprove of it, through my mother offering seconds nobody wants.
We talk about the weather. We talk about the new banners going up at the church for the fall revival.
I push food around my plate and wait for it.
It comes with the dishes still warm on the table.
"There's been talk, Sophia." My father sets down his fork. He doesn't raise his voice. My father has never once raised his voice; he doesn't need to. "At the church. About you. About things you've done, and things you've said, and pictures that have been going around."
