Ignite Me, Ice Captain

Family Dinner

Avery Calloway tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, agitation thrumming through her veins. End-of-the-month family dinners at the family house. A mandatory waste of her time.

No matter how far across town she’d relocated—for good reasons, mind you—her parents still summoned her like medieval monarchs demanding tribute.

And so here she was, stuck in traffic, crawling toward another evening of judgmental side-eyes and backhanded compliments.

As traffic began to move, she lurched the car forward a whole two feet and slammed the brakes again. At this rate, she’d be ridiculously late. Truth be told, it suited her fine, so long as the traffic could provide a passable excuse for her. Something along the line of a broken-down vehicle single-handedly destroying the city’s commute, bad enough to make the evening news. And then, if the traffic got any worse, she might just get out of it entirely.

The man in the beat-up Nissan Caravan that pulled up beside her BMW Z4 Roadster was staring at her. Not just a casual glance. Full-on gawking with a smirk attached to his lips.

She pushed back a few wayward strands of hair, then, with deliberate slowness, nudged her sunglasses down her nose and slanted him a look of her own.

What? First time seeing a queer girl?

It was almost six, so there was barely enough sunlight to justify dark glasses. Plus, many people would have pulled up the hood of a convertible by now.

The man smiled, gave her the sort of icky wink that made her want to snarl, and leaned over his passenger seat, probably ready to shout his number at her. But she was already gone, stepping on the accelerator, which thankfully shot her two cars ahead of his, inching closer to the traffic light.

She got these kinds of advances way too often to make her see the fun side.

Can a girl not go anywhere without some guy whistling behind her?

Her phone began to ring.

Her mum.

Oh yeah, checking in to see why she hadn’t arrived yet when likely, all her siblings paraded in, with their broods behind them, two, three hours ago. She let the phone ring out. Her mum wouldn’t call back. It wasn’t like her to call multiple times, but she’d definitely have an exhaustingly long lecture prepared to serve her sometime during dinner when she was down at the bottom of her list of complaints about her. She groaned aloud, already dreading the ordeal.

Once the light turned green and she branched off to the left, the road opened up, giving her plenty of space to pick up speed.

Not that she went too fast.

Her deep-seated disinterest in arriving at the Calloway house even a second earlier than necessary kept her foot light on the pedal.

Luckily, another blessed traffic stop up ahead bought her more time, though it didn’t hold her for long.

6:37 PM.

That’s when she finally pulled up to her parents’ curb—a solid hour and change past the time set for dinner.

Which meant the entire Calloway clan had been sitting there, stewing in their high-achieving, punctual misery, waiting for her like the queen for a whole hour.

And like a queen, she strolled up to the door. The mishap of the well-accomplished family. The one who had Dr. Shepherd Calloway and Dr. Bernice Edith Calloway questioning every single day—where did we go wrong?

Before she could even press the bell, her mum came to the door.

“You’re late,” she accused gruffly.

Don’t I know that?

“Traffic.” She threw back as she walked past her into the house.

“Would that always be your excuse?” her big brother, Jennings, piped up from the den.

No doubt he was in there with Dad, brainstorming the next big innovation that would make planes zip across the Atlantic and Mediterranean in seconds.

“Yeah,” her big brother, Jeffrey, chimed in. “You should at least think about the children who have to wait for you.”

Avery scanned the row of tiny, obedient heads lined up on the sofa and loveseat—Jennings’ two, Jeffrey’s three. From the eldest, maybe twelve or thirteen, to the youngest, barely three, they sat stiff as boards, their wide, unblinking eyes glued to a PBS documentary like it was a Friday evening after-school Disney spectacular.

Poor kids.

She actually felt bad for them. This was the only life they would know—school, books, big words, zero fun. They’d grow up as certified geeks, get tormented by classmates, shoved into lockers, and picked last in gym. All because they wouldn’t be taught how to fit in.

She had lived that life. All through high school. All through college. Until final-year when she had stumbled into her first boyfriend—the ridiculously hot guy who ran the car wash across from her apartment, and decided she could be cool, why not?

“Hi, kiddos,” Avery called out, injecting fake-it-till-you-make-it enthusiasm in her voice.

As expected, half-hearted glances, vague nods, and then—whooosh—eyes back on the screen.

She scoffed under her breath. “Yeah, normal kids would be fawning over their favorite aunt.”

If they had heard her, they probably would’ve tilted their heads in robotic confusion.

Because what did she even mean by favorite aunt? She was their only aunt. And hardly a likable one at that. Neither grandpa or granny or any of their parents ever had a good word to say about her. I mean, just look at her outfit.

Not at all a Calloway-approved dinner attire.

“About being late—sorry,” she added, not even pretending to sound convincing. “You know I live on the other side of town.”

Again, quick glances up and then back to the screen.

“Yes, why?” her mum pounced on the throwaway excuse like a cat on a twitching tail.

Damn. She hadn’t seen her coming.

She had seized every possible opportunity to lambast Avery’s so-called “foolish” decision to move away from their idyllic, friendly neighborhood into one “overrun with rushy people” with no orderliness in their lifestyle, namely jocks, and apparently, there was still plenty left to be said on the matter.

Rather than be goaded into yet another pointless argument about her “wayward lifestyle”, Avery dumped her purse onto the center table and made a beeline for her old room—under the noble guise of freshening up, but really, just to steal a few minutes of peace blissful she wouldn’t find anywhere else in the house, before the proclamation that dinner is served was issued.

And that proclamation, without fail, would come from the ever-dutiful Jen, her Chinese-born sister-in-law.

She had spent years making up for the Calloways’ deep disappointment over their second son marrying an Asian by practically slaving away at family gatherings. It wasn’t even taken into account, in her case, that she was no small fish in the sea of high intellectuals that made up the Calloway name. She worked alongside Jeffrey, for crying out loud, in a nearly identical capacity. That alone should give credibility to her credentials. And yet, she likely had had to arrive at the crack of dawn to help the house workers buy the groceries, prep the kitchen, and cook the meals they would soon so graciously sit down to.

She’d lost count of how many times she’d tried to get the woman to stop being a human doormat—to grow a spine, tell Jeffrey (who, by the way, was ten months younger than her) to shove it, and remind their parents she wasn’t their personal assistant. But what was the point when every pep talk earned her the same Oh look, the oddball is at it again stare?

Jen soon appeared at the doorway of her room, politely asking her to come down for dinner. Had her mother turned up instead of the little woman, she could have feigned sleep for a few seconds longer without an ounce of guilt like she had been doing for the past ten minutes since she heard her calling out for her to come down. Even she wasn’t heartless enough to ignore that level of exhaustion that showed on the woman’s face as she stood there, breathing hard from running up the stairs, draped in sweat and almost swallowed inside a big, stained apron.

With a dramatic sigh, she pushed off the bed. “Alright, alright, coming.”

Jen, still panting, gave her a small, grateful smile before turning to leave. Avery followed, shaking her head. How does she do it? On her feet since sunrise, juggling every ridiculous expectation this family threw at her, all without so much as a complaint. If anyone deserved a standing ovation at these gatherings, it was Jen. But, of course, the applause would go to the first two sons who were the national TV-worthy achievers—with some little leftover for her younger brother and the kids who were promising advocates of success.

Jen would just be a quiet observer in all communications that passed around the table, blending into the background like part of the furniture. That was still a better fate than what awaited her. She would have to sit through yet another speech on why she should have stuck to theoretical physics and followed the sacred Calloway blueprint for success.

They all sat around the fifteen-seater table for what was presumably a nice, traditional family meal. Major family dinners followed a strict, formal procedure—always served in courses. First up was the salad, a mountain of greens, because Bernice firmly believed that anything less was a crime against nutrition. Not cleaning your plate earned you a lecture on the importance of proper dietary habits. Cleaning it too well also somehow warranted another speech on refined table manners.

Even the kids chomped through the leafy pile with the dedication of grazing sheep. Avery had her own strategy to get through first course: soak the beetroot (which tasted like straight-up dirt) in honey cream, use the leftover dressing to mask the greens, shovel down the peas in one go like a bad dare, and then—finally—the cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, onions, and tomatoes, which weren’t so bad. A few bites of lettuce and a scoop of peas would be left on her plate for the helpers to take away.

“I see your sense of style keeps deteriorating, Ave,” her mum began, when they were not even halfway through the first course.

She didn’t even pause to come back with a response. Her appearance was always the first thing under fire, which was precisely why she made zero effort to please. If they were going to criticize her no matter what, she might as well make sure every snide remark counted.

“Do you ever stop to think what poor example you are setting for your nieces?”

“I’m sure their fathers provide them with such flawless examples that my bad influence barely makes a dent,” she said smoothly, wiping cream from the corner of her mouth while spearing her two brothers with looks of resentment.

“And this, sweetheart, is exactly why you don’t have a good man by your side. Don’t you think it’s time to take yourself and your future seriously? Your brothers weren’t just making names for themselves by twenty-five—they were married with families. And they’re men. You? You’re a woman. Think about your eggs that are aging every passing minute.”

Whoa, where is this new attack coming from?

“Don’t worry, Mom. My eggs are just fine. I’ve got thirteen more years before I have to start worrying,” she said, turning on the syrupy sweet tone she knew grated on her mother’s nerves.

“Forty is not a benchmark,” her mum snapped.

“But twenty-seven is?” she shot back, arching a brow.

“Look, sweetheart, I’m only—”

“—Looking out for me?” she finished for her, flashing a strained smile. “I know, Mom. It’s practically your hobby. But I’m the only doctor on this table with an actual degree, no, degrees, in health science. Leave anything about the health of my eggs to me.”

Jen, sitting opposite her, blinked in surprise at the undistinguished venom oozing from her voice.

“Hon, your mum is only looking out for you,” her dad interjected in that calm, let-me-gently-guide-you-because-you’re-nothing-but-a-senseless-child tone. “I know a lady who had her first child at thirty, and he had Down syndrome.”

She sighed dramatically. “Seriously, why are we having this discussion?” You guys are just a bunch of overeducated ignoramuses when it comes to this topic.

“Munchkin,” Jeffrey drawled, leaning back with the smugness of an older brother who had made it his life’s mission to be a royal pain in the ass. He knew very well the use of the annoying childhood nickname, meant to be a reminder of how she’d once been all elbows and knees and short before puberty finally took pity on her, would push the wrong buttons.

“I swear, if you call me that again, I’ll lodge this fork in your throat. Jen, you wouldn’t mind being a widow, would you? Just find one who’d actually cherish you when you cast your net out again.”

“Avery!” Shepherd Calloway’s voice boomed across the table.

Bernice gasped, clutching her pearls, horrified that her daughter would so casually threaten murder over dinner.

Jen stared, wide-eyed, as if she couldn’t grasp the words she speak.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey smug smile stretched wider at getting the better of her.

“As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted. You are not getting any younger. Jen was younger than you when she had Ethan, as mum said.”

She directed all her exasperation toward her mother. Bernice, for her part, regarded her with a blend of concern and frustration, the emotions gradually revealing the fine lines of age and worry that had begun to settle on her once-youthful face—compliments to her one and only daughter, Avery bet she would say—as her frown deepened.

In her prime, Bernice had been a knockout—a beauty so striking that her own mother had panicked when she chose academia over a more “sensible” office job, convinced she’d lose her value if she was tagged as a woman with her nose buried in books.

Avery sighed. Maybe her mother had fought a similar battle back in the day. Maybe she, too, had to justify her passion to a family that didn’t quite get it. But shouldn’t that make her more understanding of her plight? Shouldn’t she be the first to appreciate that a grown daughter with her own thriving career didn’t need a life script dictated to her?

Everybody, not excluding her own family, believed she was one kissed by the creator. She’d got it all handed to her. Solid, prestigious family. Her mother’s stellar genes of good looks. A highly rated powerhouse in her head. No one noticed those blessings were the very ones keeping her life from being blessed. In her mum’s image, people assume she had the IQ of a houseplant. Life as a misfit came easy when you looked like you belonged in a swimsuit calendar, or at the very least, the top of a human pyramid swaying pompoms, saying yes to every d**k that wants to have fun with you, but spent weekends poring through philosophy journals. High school, college—it had been a constant battle to prove she wasn’t a fraud, defending the papers she submitted to authenticate her works as hers, not that of an overachiever in thick-rimmed glasses she conned to do her bidding.

If she had kids…

Her gaze passed over her nieces and nephews, all sitting stiffly, indoctrinated into the Calloway way of life.

If she ever had kids… they would know something different. She would give them a chance to be normal.

When she’d shoveled down enough of the main course to meet her mum’s standard of Acceptable Consumption, she set down her fork and politely asked to be excused, citing her long drive home. By then, the conversation had shifted to James and his latest triumph—his recognition in the elite research group he worked with.

He’d be the youngest scientist to join a subteam heading to the North Pole, where they’d dig through ice in search of microbial life that might resemble potential extraterrestrial life on Europa. The table practically buzzed with admiration. Never mind that her own work actually helped people, mending broken bones. No one cared about that, but they were all enthralled by the possibility of James and his team reviving ancient, potentially deadly viruses, because that apparently was more useful to humanity.

She needed a break from the madness.