Silence.
Real silence this time.
Even my father stopped carving.
Miranda set down the wine bottle a little too hard.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Are we seriously going to keep acting like this was attempted m*rder or something? It was rain.”
The room changed temperature.
I took one step toward her.
“It was fear,” I said. “It was humiliation. It was a little girl begging family not to leave her, while you sat inside warm and dry.”
Miranda rolled her eyes, but there was less confidence in it now.
“You always exaggerate.”
“No,” I said. “I always absorb. I always excuse. I always smooth things over. That is what I am done doing.”
My father laid down the carving knife carefully, like he was handling a ceremonial object.
“Enough,” he said. “This family has always done a lot for each other.”
I looked at him for a long time.
“You want to talk about what this family has done for each other?”
He glanced at my mother, already uneasy.
And suddenly I understood.
He knew.
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