A Real Family Dinner
Caden
We had everyone at the house for dinner that night.
Eleanor and James and Sophie, obviously. But also David, who arrived at six with a bottle of wine he’d chosen carefully, and Thomas, who Aria had invited at the last minute because she said he’d earned a place at a table like this after twenty-two years of carrying a key in his wallet. Margaret came too, at Diane’s invitation, the two of them having developed an easy rhythm of including each other in things without either of them needing to ask permission first.
Eleven people.
I counted them at one point, standing at the head of the table I’d eaten alone at more times than I cared to remember, and felt the specific vertigo of a room I’d known one way my whole life suddenly being something else entirely.
Di
