Page 60 of Fox
These barbecues are parties with a big P.
Loud.
Extended cousins, neighbors, friends, and their kids are all running around.
No one is dressed up.
There are no caterers.
There is no champagne. There is beer. There is sangria made with crappy red wine, which her mother loves.
There is the most amazing barbecued meat known to mankind.
“Isn’t the barbecue tomorrow?” I ask as we get ready for bed. “We’re going, right?”
She looks at me with the slight surprise she still performs, the slight recalibration. She clears her throat. “You want to go?”
I’ve never been the one to ask to go. It was always she who brought it up.
I’m not intentionally trying to trip her up—or maybe I am. Who the fuck knows at this point?
“Of course. Unless your ribs?—“
“My ribs are fine,” she says, too quickly, the way she says things these days when she’s protecting the independence of her own body from my concern. “I want to go.” A pause, the performance layering back in. “I’d like to see them with you.”
She knows exactly how they are with me.
Still, I nod and play along.
I give her something to watch.
The Vidal house in Antioch is a two-bedroom, two-bath with a backyard where there’s a fig tree, peonies, and wisteria, all planted by Lucy’s mother.
Their house is very different from the one I grew up in at Belle Meade.
Lucy told me once, laughing at my mother’s use of the termthe house, “My parents have a house, too; they call it the same thing, just without Margaret’s reverb.”
I’ve been here a few times now, but not nearly enough to be comfortable. I’m still navigating the delicate territory of a son-in-law being assessed, and it’s not yet clear whether I’m passing.
I have not always made sufficient effort with the Vidals, which I should have since Lucy tried so hard to make it work with my dysfunctional and, honestly, unbearable family.
This is part of the accounting I have been doing, the long list of things I didn’t do, and this is on the list.
Robert is in the driveway when we pull up. He is a compact, unhurried man with Lucy’s eyes and Lucy’s quality of taking time before he speaks. He watches me help Lucy out of the car with an expression that could be positive or...not?
I shake his hand. “Robert.”
“Fox.” He looks at Lucy. “Baby girl, you look better.”
“I’m almost human.” She lets her father hug her carefully, his big hands gentle around her, as if he knows exactly where it hurts.
He looks at me over her shoulder. “She good?”
“She’s getting there.”
“So, my saying it is not enough, you need Fox to confirm?” Lucy protests.
Robert grins and leads his daughter into the house. “Fox, you eat yet?” he asks over his shoulder.
