Page 71 of The Burning
“Are you still hungry?” Estelle asked my dad. He grumbled a yes and she stood up to place another piece of chicken on his plate. He didn’t even look at her as he changed the subject and started talking to Austin about an industrial plant in the Midwest that had had an explosion over the weekend. Estelle slid my dad’s refreshed plate right under his arms without him moving, like some well-choreographed dance. She then picked up his beer bottle and shook it gently, lifting it to the light to see how close to empty it was. After determining that her man-child was fine, she sat her chin on her wrist and stared around the room, not once noticing that I was staring at her. I wondered what she was thinking about: How happy she was here serving my father, or running away like my mother had?
Her being domestic wasn’t the issue. It was that I knew my dad gave little to nothing in return. Yes, he paid the bills, so he got a pass for that, but I had never once seen him say thank you or anything that wasn’t superficial. He was never appreciative of the fact that she cooked every meal he ate and washed every single dish he touched. I felt for her in that regard, and I wondered if she had known this would be her life once she married my father. I knew so little about her past that it was hard to say whether her life had gotten better or worse since. My eyes trailed down her neckline from the dainty heart-shaped diamond dangling over her chest bone to the big diamond ring on her left hand; I guessed she was just fine in this captivity. Maybe I was being too judgmental again.
“I made some pies for the FRG. Saved an extra one. I remember your friend likes pie.”
I was startled by Estelle suddenly standing behind me.
Austin jumped in before I could respond. “Is it cool if we take it back for Elodie? She loves the stuff, and you know me and Karina really don’t care for sweets.”
“Oh, sure.” Estelle’s voice was cheery. “I can pack it up. Your father needs to watch his sugar, anyway.” She sauntered into the kitchen.
Even I was playing a part today as I sat there and passed up dessert, a frosted cherry pie with sugar coating caramelized on the edges of braided dough. It had the kind of smell that I imagined came along with happy childhood memories of running through tall grass in the evening air, a smiling mother calling for her children to come in for a treat. It was always someone else’s mother, though, not mine. This cherry pie was Elodie’s favorite—she would devour it when I got home. I snapped a picture of it while no one was paying attention and sent it to Elodie. She immediately replied with a tongue out emoji. I moved the napkin ring and tilted my phone a little and took another photo from a different angle, just to entertain myself. I posted the image to my Instagram for the hell of it and watched as my phone lit up again and again. I ignored the notifications until I saw Kael’s name pop up. I clicked his profile, and it was still private. I meant to ask him about liking my other posts, but with everything that had happened during the camping trip, there had been no time to bring it up.
I heard aluminum foil tearing and as my dad finally said my name, I flipped my phone over and laid it face down on the table.
“Karina, how is Eloise, anyway?”
So now he wanted to act like I existed? At least he’d chosen a topic I cared about and unrelated to my job.
“Elodie,” Austin corrected him before I could and made a face at my dad when he wasn’t looking.
“She’s fine. Still pregnant.” I shrugged. I didn’t want my dad to know much about her, and I went into protective mode as I thought about the connection my dad likely had to Phillip. There was no reason to tell him more than whatever he already knew.
“She’s such a pretty girl. Like wow. Stunning,” Estelle called from the kitchen.
Austin nodded. My dad, too.
“Yeah, she’s really beautiful,” Austin said. He lifted his beer and took a drink.
“Yeah. She is. But she’s also kind, considerate, brave, and a really great friend to me,” I informed them. Elodie was stunning, of course, but that was the least interesting thing about her.
“Her husband will be home soon, right?” Estelle asked, setting the pie-to-go in front of Austin.
“What?” Austin sounded surprised.
My dad snapped his head toward his wife. She batted her pretty eyes at him and shrugged. Maybe she didn’t know that this was a sore subject for all of us.
“I heard he was coming home soon,” my dad added.
“How would you even know that when Elodie doesn’t know when he’s coming back?” Austin asked indignantly.
It seemed he knew more than I thought he did about the whole situation.
I leaned forward even more. “I thought he was supposed to come home in a few months. And, as I’m sure you know”—I looked directly at my father—“he was deployed with Martin, or Kael, as you guys know him. They’re all in the same platoon.”
My dad took up my challenge and stared straight at me. His crepe-like skin was blotching with patches of little red spots around his nose.
I picked up my wineglass and finished it in one gulp. I was ready to go.
“Well, we hope he returns safely to his wife. I hope all the boys do,” Estelle said sweetly.
“Don’t we all,” Austin sighed into his beer bottle.
I wanted to add,yeah, well most aren’t so lucky, but decided to keep working on my exit strategy.
The tension in my dad’s shoulders had gone down but I still felt more than on edge. I was ready to leave twenty minutes ago, but had assumed there would be some sort of birthday cake, or singing, or a thoughtless gift of picture frames with positive quotes in an even more thoughtless party bag stuffed with tissue paper.
“Anyway, now that you’ve got yourself a job, maybe a car next?” My dad’s attention had not surprisingly gone back to my brother.
