It happened during the salad course.
“So Ivy,” Craig said, smiling. “Where’d you go to school?”
A simple question, polite, the kind of question people ask when they’re trying to include you.
I opened my mouth. My mother was faster.
“Ivy didn’t finish college, Craig.”
The table shifted. Forks paused. Craig blinked.
“Oh, that’s fine. Lots of people.”
“She had potential.” My mother tilted her head. The picture of maternal sorrow. “But some people just aren’t built for it.”
I felt 30 pairs of eyes graze my skin.
“I left for a reason, Mom.”
“Honey, we’ve been over this.”
Meredith pressed her lips together.
“Can we not do this at dinner?”
My mother turned to Craig, voice low enough to seem intimate, loud enough for the entire end of the table to hear.
“I just worry about her, you know. A mother never stops worrying.”
My father picked up his wine glass, drank, sat it down, said nothing.
Ruth looked at me from the other end of the table. Her eyes said two words.
Not yet.
After dinner, I was standing on the back porch when the screen door opened. Craig. He leaned against the railing, hands in his pockets.
“For what it’s worth,” he said. “Your mom seems complicated.”
I looked at him.
“You okay?” he asked.
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