“What?” Megan’s eyes settle on Jake with vindictive glee. “What are you talking about, Mom? Jake has a Harley in his garag?—”
Jake leaps out of his seat, slapping his hand over his sister’s mouth. “I’m holding it for a friend!”
“Jake!” His mother’s fork clatters against her plate.
“You have a Harley?” Jake’s father looks impressed despite his wife’s distress. “Which one?”
“Harold!”
“The Fat Boy,” Jake admits, looking both pleased and sheepish as he sits back down. “I got it off a biker in a bar in Harlem. Fixed it up. Customized it?—”
“You just said you were holding it for a friend, Jake!” Helen looks horrified.
“Well, yeah. Me. I’m the friend. I’m my own friend,” Jake defends himself with flawless logic.
“Smooth, Jake.” Nick shakes his head while Elisha looks annoyed. “It’s just a bike, not the end of the world.”
“It’s not just a bike. It is The Bike,” Caleb points out with obvious relish.
Elisha rolls her eyes and focuses on her meal with pointed disinterest.
“I don’t care if it’s a bike or The Bike,” Helen says heatedly. “I don’t want you riding it, Jake!”
“Didn’t you hear?” Jake gapes at her with disbelief. “I’m not the one riding around on a bike. Your baby daughter is the one riding around the city on one, and with a strange guy on top of that.”
“You piece of sh—” Megan starts.
“Language!”
The meal has barely even started, and chaos has alreadyerupted around the table. I meet Caleb’s gaze, who’s grinning at me with obvious delight, and he mouths ‘You’re welcome.’
Ethan’s voice is low near my ear. “It’s always like this. Let’s just eat and go.”
He cuts me a piece of the chicken and fills up my plate with care before moving onto his own.
I can barely concentrate on my food, overwhelmed by the boisterous dinner conversation. Even though an argument has broken out, it just seems to be casual bickering rather than a real fight. Everybody is eating while Mrs. Wilder lectures Jake and Megan with the patience of long practice. Caleb throws conversational grenades into the discussion, causing dirty looks to be cast his way. Nick and his wife are more focused on each other and their food, and Harold is equally interested in the bike and his meal.
Dinner at my house growing up had been a quiet, tense affair. I was never allowed to speak at the table. It was always my mother and Lucas talking while I sat in silence.
As I look around at the lively dinner, a memory surfaces—one I must’ve buried somewhere deep inside. I’d won the spelling bee in the sixth grade and had been bursting with excitement. My mother always used to say I never had anything useful to contribute, so I should keep my mouth shut. We had mac and cheese for dinner that evening. I still remember the taste of it for some reason—a little grainy and chalky, since Mom wasn’t the best cook. My brother had been telling her about his basketball game when I interrupted them. I only wanted to tell them I won the spelling bee. I wanted my mother to look at me with the same pride in her eyes that she held when looking at Lucas.
I still remember the disgust in those eyes when she turned to look at me, Lucas’s sigh of irritation echoing in the small dining room. She hadn’t said a word, just picked up my plate and taken it to the kitchen, dragging me along with her. I had to finish therest of my dinner in the kitchen by myself while standing at the counter.
I’d forgotten this particular memory until today.
I always knew my mother preferred Lucas. She blamed me for her life going to hell, for our father leaving, for being forced to work when she had previously been a housewife. Over time, as I grew older, I kept trying to earn some form of affection from her. But she never scolded me the way Mrs. Wilder is scolding her children—with affection in her voice. She never looked at me with such pride. She never fussed over me.
My family wasn’t the most idealistic one, but they had been mine, and they were all I had. Them turning their backs on me was devastating. When my mother reached out to me three years ago, I had been cautious at first, but the desire to get the one thing I never had was still there. I have always craved her approval, her love.
My heart throbs as I glance at Ethan from the corner of my eyes. I don’t think he ever had to worry about getting his mother’s approval. Mr. and Mrs. Wilder clearly adore their children. It’s obvious to anyone with eyes.
Ethan finds his family annoying?
Does he know how lucky he is to have a place to call home, to have people who will welcome him with open arms? Does he realize that this is a gift?
“Natalie, dear?”
My head jerks up at Mrs. Wilder’s voice. “Sorry. Did you say something?”
