Behave when there are kids around Days went by uneventful. I submitted the first half-year report a week earlier than I used to, but Dad, well, he wasn’t impressed. During our family dinner, I was like an invisible person to him, until after dinner when I walked to his office. Dad was in the red lounge chair with an empty glass, where he usually sat when not behind his desk. My stomach rolled. “What’s the deal with your silence, Dad? Did I happen to develop some kind of invisibility?” He didn’t reply or move. He kept staring at the old painting owned by his late father, Henry Archibald Williams. “Are you going to ignore me throughout our lives? Until one of us is eventually dead? Because I have no plan on leaving Blaine if that’s the reason why you’re doing this to me. You talked to he

