The Speed of Light: A Novel(9)
CHAPTER FOUR
The table is crowded with food and people—with the heavy red tablecloth, we look like a group of dignitaries ready for a meeting, the chairs so close together you can barely squeeze in.
I scan my options. Grandma is seated at the end, with Mom and Dad on either side. Damn—the Johnsons have already lined up next to Mom and our other neighbors, the Colts, next to Dad, so I can’t sit by either of my parents. That means small talk is inevitable, but I need to decide who is less annoying to sit by.
I push my hair back from my face—there’s a snowstorm outside, but it’s blazing hot in here. Around me, the group continues friendly chatter at the table, and I make my decision: Walter will surely sit next to his parents, so I have to sit by the Colts to avoid any awkwardness and not send my mother any unintended signals of hope. I’m confident in this choice, but as I round the table, Walter emerges from the kitchen with a drink in his hand, and it’s like a warning bell goes off in my mind.
He’s on the wrong side. Why is he walking toward the Colts? As he sits next to Mr. Colt, I’m a deer in the headlights, a statue frozen at the edge of the table. But I’ve committed. Now I have to sit next to him, or I’ll look like a complete jerk.
The basement door opens then and Emmett walks out, his shoulders hunched over his lanky frame. We make eye contact, but if he registers my discomfort, it doesn’t show—there’s no sympathetic glance, not even a smirk as he slides into the seat next to Mrs. Johnson.
I face forward again, plastering what I hope is a convincing smile on my face, and Walter smiles back, pulls out the chair next to him.
Across the table, Emmett clears his throat. “Hey, sit by me, sis.”
I turn in surprise, blink, then offer a shrug and a quick apologetic smile toward Walter before scurrying around the table. I don’t have time to thank my brother as I sit down—Dad is standing up and leading grace, and soon we’re passing plates and filling our bellies amid contented chatter. And now seated next to my brother, who has absolutely no desire to hold a conversation, I’m completely at ease.
The minutes tick by, and I fill up my plate a number of times because it’s the holidays—no judgment. I’m deliberating whether I can lick my plate after my third helping of meatballs when Mrs. Johnson leans around my brother. “So, Simone.” Something about the way she says my name, the slow drawing out of the syllables, makes my shoulders tense. “How are you feeling?”
It’s dripping with sympathy, and yet there’s something fake in her voice that makes my skin prickle. I take a long sip of the champagne Mom passed around the table—so long it can’t technically be considered a sip, really. “I’m fine, thank you.”
She beams at me, her smile garish amid fuchsia lipstick and face pinked from the heat of the room or the bubbly in her own glass. “Oh, that’s so good to hear, dear. You know, I had an older brother with MS.”
I stiffen. “Uh, well, I’m not even sure that’s what I have.”
Curse this long, twisting road of medical uncertainty. With all my appointments, every test to rule something out, someone else has inevitably found out what is going on—that the big, bad thing we’ve feared I have is multiple sclerosis. Sometimes it’s been my own fault—like my awkward conversation with my boss, Stan, because I needed so much time off work for medical appointments. Other times, it was totally my mom oversharing with nosy neighbors—like Mrs. Johnson.
Her smile is too patronizing now, and as she opens her mouth to speak again, I cut her off, blurting, “So, uh, how’s he doing?”
Mrs. Johnson’s brows furrow. “My brother? Oh, he died years ago.”
I wince, then reach for my glass, raising it to my lips as Emmett leans forward with a snort. “Gee, that’s comforting.”
“Emmett,” Mom warns, glaring from her seat down the table as I nearly choke on the final drops of my champagne.
He shrugs and goes back to eating. I lean in, whisper, “Thanks.”
“I just feel sorry for you.” His eyes cut to mine, a twinkle in them. “You know, since Mom and Dad love me best and all.”
I elbow him with an affectionate “Jerk.” There’s truth to it—he’s their miracle, born years after they thought they couldn’t have any more kids—but I was old enough then that he was like my baby, too. We’re opposites in many ways—he’s all logic and I’m all emotion; he’s drawn to sports; me, the arts. We don’t even look that much alike, since I’m short like Mom, my pale skin prone to sunburn, and Emmett is tall like Dad, always tan in the summer. But my brother and I are still close enough to have each other’s backs like true siblings.
Despite my gratitude and sisterly pride, my appetite has vanished. I glance over at Mrs. Johnson, who’s dabbing her red face with her napkin and sneaking indignant daggers at Emmett. The entire table is silent now except for the clinking of silverware and the clearing of throats, the tension so thick we could be cutting that with our knives instead of Mom’s holiday meal.
I wipe my sweaty brow, press a hand to my cheek, but it does nothing to quell the flush on my face. I can feel everyone at the table’s eyes glancing up at me every few seconds from their plates. The ungracious sick girl. Finally, I can’t take it any longer. My chair scrapes against the laminate flooring as I push myself back, stand up.