The dinner table was quiet in the way it only was when someone at it was pretending everything was fine.
Alexander's fork moved against his plate in slow, absent circles, pushing food from one side to the other without any real intention of eating it. His mother was watching him with the particular patience of a woman who had learned to wait for her children to surface on their own.
"How was the trip?" she asked.
"Good," he said.
A pause.
“Did something happen?” his mother asked in a concerned tone at the sight of her distracted and disoriented son.
“No, not at all. Why would you ask?” he said.
Emily looked up from across the table with an expression that could have stripped paint.
"Probably because you've been stabbing your food for the last ten minutes without eating any of it,"
