"He still loves her," Andre thought. And almost immediately after, "That's not my problem to solve. " The waiter arrived. Menace were consulted, wine was poured. Patricia began telling a story about the restaurant where she and James had their first date 36 years ago. A story she had clearly told many times, which the rest of the table appeared to have heard before, but welcomed again because it was the good kind of told before story.
The kind that reveals something true about the people in it every time it's repeated. Andre listened and under the table, Clare's hand found his briefly, just a touch, just for a moment, fingers against his knuckles before she withdrew it and reached for her water glass. He didn't look at her, but his hand felt the absence of hers for the rest of the appetizer course. Dinner moved in the way that formal family dinners move in courses, in conversations that over overlapped, in the particular social choreography of people who know each other well enough to love each other and still find ways to push bruises. Patricia kept steering the conversation toward the future in ways that seemed casual and were not.
Where do you two see yourselves in a few years? Delivered over the soup course with the ease of a woman who had been maneuvering dinner conversations for three decades. Andre answered in the way he'd committed to honest, grounded, deflecting the parts that weren't his to answer. I'm focused on the present, he said. Clare can speak to what she sees for herself.
Patricia looked between them. You're not making joint plans yet. We're making sure we understand each other first. Clare said plans come from that. It was the most honest thing she'd said all night, and Andre could tell from the fractional change in her posture, the way she'd straightened slightly after saying it, that it had cost her something to say it in front of her mother.
James finally spoke to him directly during the main course. What kind of residential work do you do? Not hostile, but not warm yet either. The voice of a man asking the question behind the question. High-end renovation mostly.
Historic homes in Inman Park, Kirkwood Grant Park, some new builds in Buckhead. Andre sat down his fork. Not defensively, just to give the answer the attention it deserved. I started out working for another firm. Went out on my own 6 years ago after Maya was born after her mother passed.
The table shifted, not dramatically, but the air changed slightly. The way air changes when a real thing is said among performative things. I'm sorry for your loss, James said. And this time there was no evaluation in it. Just a man recognizing another man's grief.
Thank you. Andre picked up his fork again. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. But Maya's good. She's She's extraordinary.
Actually, easier than she should be considering. A pause. I take that as a gift. Patricia was looking at him differently now, not with the theatrical delight of the first moment, something realer than that, like she was revising something. Lucille had stopped pretending to be interested in her entree and was looking at him openly without apology.