That was the cruelest weapon he owned, and he knew exactly how to use it.
I seasoned two chickens the way Lucy used to, with lemon, garlic, thyme, and enough butter to make a doctor nervous. I made rice, roasted potatoes, salad, green beans, and a three-milk cake from the bakery Lucy loved. I even took out the good plates.
I told myself Louis would remember.
Maybe he would sit beside me, remember his mother, and say, “Happy birthday, Dad,” like he meant it.
By four in the afternoon, I was tired. I went upstairs to rest for twenty minutes.
When I woke, the sky outside my bedroom window had turned dark.
Laughter rolled up the staircase.
Not two or three voices.
A crowd.
I buttoned my clean blue shirt, combed what remained of my gray hair, and went downstairs.
More than twenty people filled my house—cousins, neighbors, and friends of Louis and Carla. Strangers drank my bourbon. Lucy’s photograph had been moved from the mantel to make room for a speaker. Plates were already half empty.
They were eating the food I had cooked, and no one had called me down.
I stood at the dining room entrance until someone noticed me.
The room went quiet for half a second.
Then Louis looked up from the head of the table.
My seat.
He was sitting in my seat.
Carla occupied the chair where Lucy had sat for thirty-eight years. Her phone lay beside her plate, camera pointed toward the room.
I forced a smile.
“You started without me?”
Louis leaned back and laughed.
“Oh, Dad. We forgot you were upstairs. You’re so quiet these days, you’re basically a ghost.”
A few people laughed.
Others stared at their plates.
