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“You have to keep stirring, Dad.”

Silas went back to stirring.

“Her name is Ruth.”

“Is she your age?” Silas asked, keeping the spoon moving. The broth in the pot steamed.

“Going into tenth grade,” Mickey answered. “She’s super cool. Really pretty too.”

“Well, look at you, Miss Thang,” Silas said. Mickey rolled her eyes.

“No one says ‘Miss Thang’ anymore.”

“One person does,” Silas answered, pointing to his chest.

“Where is Mom?” Mickey asked, pushing herself off the counter and opening the fridge.

“Work. She’ll be home soon.”

Mickey grabbed a can of seltzer and closed the fridge door. Silas thought she looked disappointed, but he couldn’t tell if the disappointment was because of Lily’s absence or her inevitable return. Lily and Mickey’s dynamic had shifted recently. Silas and Lily’s friends said it was normal teenage behavior: daughter taking out her anger on mom. Silas always secretly hoped his kids were above all of that typical development stuff, but it was becoming clear that they weren’t.

“Shower before dinner?” he asked.

“How long do I have?”

“Long enough—you’re gross,” he said, patting her head and making a big deal of wiping sweat on his pants.

“I wouldn’t be gross if you didn’t make me join this stupid team,” Mickey said. “I would be clean all day long.”

“But you wouldn’t have met your cool, pretty new friend,” Silas said, and Mickey smiled. It surprised him, how happy she looked.

Ruth, he thought. He’d have to check the school website and see what he could find out. There couldn’t be too many Ruths in Mickey and Sean’s school. It wasn’t a name he heard often.

“She seriously pantsed him, Dad, like, in front of everyone.”

Mickey was beaming now, with a dreamy look. That was the word that came to mind when he considered her, leaning against the fridge: “dreamy.”

“That sounds pretty mean.”

“Trust me, he deserved it,” Mickey answered, and Silas did. Trust her.

“Dinner in twenty,” he said when she leaned in and put her head on his chest for a second, a hug without arms. “Tell your brother.”

“I’m not knocking on his door.”

“Just yell it in the hallway.”

He stirred the pot, added more salt and pepper. He wanted to put on a new record, but he couldn’t abandon the food. He wished he had asked Mickey to do it before she left, but he heard the water in the pipes upstairs and knew he had missed his chance.

Silas had been in charge of dinner since he married Lily seventeen years ago. Lily didn’t cook; she would’ve lived on Pringles and wine if he let her. She would go a full day without eating like it was nothing. Silas couldn’t do that. He loved dinner in particular. He centered his day around it: what he would cook, what he would need to make it perfect. He thought about it at work; he thought about it on Sundays when he made sauce and packed extra Tupperware for the kids to bring to the neighbors. He took a swig of his beer, and let the bitter aftertaste linger on his tongue.

Silas was the kind of man who took pleasure in the little things. His father had been the same way. His brother, Philip, was the serious one. Silas watched Sean sometimes and saw Philip in him. It made him both proud and nervous, seeing his older brother’s face in his son. He saw him most in some of Sean’s sideways glances, the way he watched more than he spoke.

Soon the whole family would be going to New Hampshire. Silas had been going to his New Hampshire house since he was born. He saw Lily naked for the first time in the third-floor guest room when they were sixteen, touched her until she bit his shoulder hard enough to draw blood. He reminded her of that every summer, lingering in the doorway, thinking maybe the memory would raise something in her. It used to. Silas thought about it as he stirred the pot. When he felt himself getting hard, he took another sip of beer and willed the thought away. He didn’t know when he started to associate desire with shame, but somewhere along the way, they had become deep, disgusted bedfellows. He never felt one without feeling the other.

Lily would be home soon. They would eat dinner, and he would tell her about Mickey’s new friend, the one who pantsed a boy on her behalf, if Mickey didn’t tell her herself. He thought Lily would like that story, but he wasn’t sure. Silas felt like he was getting to know his wife less with time. He didn’t know how that was possible, but it was. When they were kids, he always knew what she liked, how to make her smile or laugh or storm off. He knew all of her buttons and how to push them just right. Now he wasn’t as sure.

He brought the spoon to his mouth.

“Perfect,” he said to the empty kitchen.





PEYOTE





IT HAD BEEN A long time since I had an opinion about going into work, but after storming out of the Honey Pot, I didn’t want to go. This sudden change—the dread in my gut—did not feel good. I swallowed it down with some Alka-Seltzer and told myself it was a hangover. I’ve had a lot of practice lying to myself. I could pretend that’s a Hell thing, but it’s universal.

I made it to my cubicle without seeing anyone. I hung my jacket over the back of my chair and sat down, which was when I saw the bottle.