The Dinner Table
The dining room was the kind of quiet that happened when three people were sitting together and none of them wanted to be.
Vanessa moved her food around her plate. The fork scraped the porcelain at intervals — a small, repetitive sound that filled the silence because nothing else was filling it. Across from her Victor ate steadily and without looking up. At the head of the table Luther sat with the composed stillness of a man who had learned decades ago that stillness made people nervous and had decided he preferred it that way.
He looked at Vanessa.
"What is the progress with Alexander," he said.
Not a question. A prompt.
Vanessa set her fork down and looked up and smiled the smile she kept ready for this specific person. "Everything is fine. We spoke this week. He
