For one brief second, he glanced at Jessica.
That glance told Nancy more than any answer could have.
Jessica saw it too.
Her confidence snapped back into place.
“Brian works all week,” she said, cutting another piece of Nancy’s steak. “He doesn’t need drama during dinner.”
Under the table, Nancy’s hand closed slowly into a fist.
Brian had not always been this man.
At sixteen, he had stepped between two boys at school when one cornered the other in the hallway.
At twenty-two, he had driven six hours to get her after her car died on a lonely stretch of highway.
When his father passed away, Brian had called every Sunday.
Sometimes twice.
Then he got married.
The calls became shorter.
Then monthly.
Eventually, Nancy was almost always the one who called first.
Now her son sat four feet away from her, watching his wife take food from his mother’s plate, and he couldn’t bring himself to say a single word.
Nancy studied him more closely.
He didn’t look physically exhausted.
He looked worn down somewhere deeper than that, like a man who measured every sentence before speaking because he already knew the cost of saying the wrong thing.
She had seen that look before.
She had simply refused to name it.
Jessica lifted her glass.
“So, are you going to sit there staring at everyone?”
Nancy turned back to her.
“I’m thinking.”
“That’s dangerous.”
Brian’s head came up.
“Jess.”
“What?” Jessica looked at him, innocent on the surface. “I’m joking.”
Nobody laughed.
At the end of the booth, Tyler, the oldest child, looked from his grandmother to his father, his small hands motionless beside his plate.
Tyler pushed his plate toward Nancy.
The fork slid against its edge. Everyone looked down.
“You can have mine, Grandma.”
Nancy’s hand opened beneath the table. She gently stopped the plate before it reached the middle.
“Thank you, sweetheart. Your dinner belongs to you.”
Jessica set her glass down.
“Now look what you’ve done. He thinks somebody’s being mean.”
Brian stared at his son’s outstretched hands.
“Somebody is.”
