Chapter 2

"Who’s starving?" Marcus’s voice cut across the room as he slapped his thighs and stood. "That ham was mostly salt. Meatloaf at the diner on Main Street. My treat."

"It’s Christmas, Marcus," Brooke said, reaching for her coat. "Are they even open?"

"Every single year from three to nine," Colin said, slipping into his parka. "Old Miller keeps it open for the snowplow drivers and people who burn their turkeys."

Ten minutes later, we pushed through the frosted glass door of the Main Street Diner. The bell above the lintel gave a short, metallic chime. The diner was warm, smelling of griddled onions, dark coffee, and damp wool.

The elderly server behind the counter looked up, recognized the group, and nodded toward the corner booth.

"The usual? Table for five?"

Brooke, walking in front, answered without a second's hesitation.

"Yes."

She took two steps, then froze. She turned around, her face flushing pink against the collar of her scarf.

"No. Sorry—six. Six of us, Gail."

The server gestured to the corner. The booth had a long vinyl bench against the wall and three heavy, high-backed wooden chairs pulled up to the outer edge.

Five places.

Grant slid into the bench first, sitting close to the wall. Tessa slipped off her down coat and slid in beside him, setting her leather planner on the laminate tabletop. Marcus, Colin, and Brooke took the three wooden chairs.

I was left standing in the narrow aisle between our table and the pie case.

The server turned back from the register with two menus under her arm.

"It’s okay," I said softly, my hand already resting on the back of a spare wooden chair from an empty two-top behind me. "I’ll just grab this one."

The chair was solid oak, heavy and unwieldy.

Its legs dragged across the linoleum floor with a sharp, piercing screech that cut through the low murmur of the diner.

Nobody stood up.

Grant didn't reach out to take the back of the chair. Tessa didn't slide over.

The conversation had already moved effortlessly from the snow outside to Marcus’s high school track schedule for the spring semester.

I lifted the chair into the gap at the corner of the table and sat down.

In my pocket, my fingers closed around the folded piece of paper from the glass ornament.

All of you. I want all of you at my table.

I kept my hand inside my coat and didn't let go.

When the plates of meatloaf and grilled sandwiches arrived, Tessa mentioned that her sister could watch Brooke’s boys on Sunday morning.

Brooke reached across the table and squeezed Tessa’s wrist.

“Tessa, seriously. I don’t know what any of us would do without you.”

Grant raised his soda glass.

“Thank God for Tessa,” he said.

I looked down at my plate.

It started to sleet on the five-mile drive back to our townhouse.

The wipers beat an uneven rhythm against the windshield, smearing the gray slush across the glass. The heater blew dry, hot air over our ankles. Neither of us spoke until we were stopped at the long red light by the county courthouse.

"When was that lake house trip?" I asked.

Grant kept both hands at ten and two on the steering wheel. "Which one?"

"The photo from the bottom of the box. July fourteenth. The weekend my mom had her second valve surgery."

His fingers tightened slightly against the leather wrap.

"Oh," he said. "That. It wasn't a planned thing, Valerie. Marcus called on Saturday morning. Tessa was dealing with her firm’s partnership review, Brooke was fighting with Mark. Everyone was running on fumes. We just drove up for twenty-four hours to decompress."

"You told me you were at home working on drawings."

"You were sitting outside an intensive care unit," Grant said, turning his head to look at me. His eyes were wide, earnest, completely devoid of guilt. "Your mother was in critical condition. What was I supposed to do? Call you from the dock and tell you we were having a beer? You would have felt guilty for not coming, or resentful that we were away."

"So you decided what I should feel," I said. "And then you lied so you wouldn't have to deal with it."

"I protected you," he said, the light turning green. He accelerated smoothly onto Elm Street. "Valerie, it was an afternoon of five exhausted people sitting on a porch. Nobody was trying to hurt you. Why do you always look for reasons to make yourself an outsider?"

"I don't have to look," I said. "You leave the breadcrumbs everywhere."

He sighed, a heavy, disappointed breath, and drove the rest of the way in silence.

By eleven that night, Grant had fallen asleep on the living room sofa, the television murmuring low blue light over his chest.

I opened the old message backup on the shared computer and searched my name.

2019 — Grant: Valerie’s working late. Don’t text her. She gets overwhelmed.

That night, I had been home with dinner waiting for him.

2021 — Brooke: Should we wait for Valerie?

Grant: No. She has an early shift tomorrow.

I had taken the next morning off.

He had not been protecting my peace. He had been deciding when I belonged.

His phone buzzed once on the glass coffee table.

A preview from Table for Five, sent by Tessa, lit the screen.

Can the five of us meet at Old Oak at nine tomorrow? We can do the rehearsal walkthrough and fix the entrance order before Valerie gets there. Keep it stress-free for her.

I read it once.

Then I went upstairs without waking him.