Twenty minutes earlier, everything had seemed almost normal. Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ colonial in Westchester County, New York: the long mahogany dining table, the good china, the crystal glasses my mother only brought out twice a year. A twenty-two-pound turkey glistening on a silver platter. Candles in tall silver holders. A centerpiece of orange roses and eucalyptus that my mother had ordered from a florist in Scarsdale for $140.
Terrence had been holding court at the head of the table, in the seat beside my father, describing a vacation he and Natalie had just taken to the Amalfi Coast. A private villa. A yacht for the day. A dinner in Positano that cost “more than most people’s cars.” Every time he crossed his legs, his new designer suede loafers caught the light from the chandelier.
Leo sat beside me in a booster seat, swinging his legs, working very hard on his mashed potatoes. He’d practiced saying “Happy Thanksgiving” the whole drive up from the city.
Then he reached for his glass of cranberry juice.
His little hand slipped on the condensation. The glass tipped. Red juice spread across the white tablecloth and dripped off the edge, splashing onto the hardwood floor and onto Terrence’s suede loafers.
Natalie was on her feet before the juice finished spreading.
“Can’t you watch him for once?”
Leo froze. His face went white.
I grabbed a napkin and knelt down to blot the floor. “I’m so sorry. It was an accident. Leo, honey, it’s okay.”
Terrence stared down at his shoes as if my son had destroyed a family heirloom. “These are Ferragamo,” he said to nobody in particular. “Eight hundred dollars.”
I was still on my knees, mopping cranberry juice off the floor, when my mother spoke.
“He is your responsibility, Nicole.” She said it in the same calm, cool voice she uses to send back a steak at a restaurant. “We are tired of dealing with it.”
