Page 24 of Ricardo

“Of course,” he says.

My mother touches Bunny’s arm. “Come, let’s go in. Dinner is ready.”

The dining room is exactly as it always is.

Long mahogany table. Silver candlesticks. White roses in low crystal bowls. China with a thin gold rim. Heavy curtains framing windows that look out over a garden lit well enough to be seen from inside. The room is beautiful in the way a museum room is beautiful. Preserved, expensive, and unwilling to let anyone get too comfortable.

I sit where my mother directs me, which is to her right, while she sits next to my father at the head of the table. Hugh takes the seat to the left of my father, his wife next to him. Which puts me right across from Bunny.

The first course is served almost immediately. A chilled soup in shallow bowls. Pretty. Pale. Garnished with something green I cannot identify.

I take a spoonful and taste cucumber, cream, and obligation.

Hugh talks about a development near the river. My father talks around a zoning issue that could put me to sleep if I weren’t so well-practiced. Bunny asks my mother about a museum benefit. My mother gives a polished answer about the committee, the donors, and the unfortunate floral direction last year.

I sit straight, eat when appropriate, and remember how to be decorative without looking vacant.

It is like putting on an old coat that never fit well.

“Julia always had a gift for events,” Bunny says when the salad comes out. “Do you remember the Art Institute benefit she worked on? What year was that, Suzanne?”

“Three years ago,” my mother says.

“Four,” I correct before I can stop myself.

My mother smiles. “Was it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it was beautiful.”

“Julia saved the seating chart,” Bunny says. “I remember that. There was some dreadful issue with the Caldwell woman and her ex-husband.”

“His new wife,” my mother says.

“Yes, exactly. A nightmare.”

“It wasn’t too difficult,” I say.

My father looks mildly amused. “You came home and said you wanted to fake your own death.”

Hugh laughs. Bunny does too. My mother smiles because apparently that line is acceptable if my father says it.

“I was younger then,” I say.

“More dramatic,” my father says.

No one else would notice the edge beneath it.

The next course arrives. Fish, small and careful, arranged beside vegetables that have never been allowed near butter. The conversation turns to politics, then avoids politics, then circles back to it under the safer name of public service.

Hugh asks my father about the courts. My father gives him just enough. Bunny asks my mother about someone’s daughter who has married someone’s son in what everyone at the table clearly agrees is a good match on paper.

Then Bunny looks at me.

“And Harrison,” she says. “How is he handling everything?”

My hand tightens around my fork.