Like Families Do

“As you both know, we wanted to take everyone out to dinner tonight,” my mom said, smoothing her favorite skirt, the one with little potted plants and gardening tools sprinkled all over it. “And the reason why is a happy one, we want you to know that.” She looked over at my dad, who cleared his throat.

“Yes, yes, we do. We want you to know that,” he said. He fiddled with a candied almond from the coffee table. The pink sugar coating was melting over his fingertips, and when he pushed up his glasses, he left a little pink smudge between his eyes. Shannah nudged me. I wrinkled my nose at her quickly, so that our parents wouldn’t see.

“Some days have been hard, for your father and me, for all of us,” my mom continued. “It’s all the little things that accumulate. Or sometimes, they’ve been there all along, but you don’t realize. That’s just life, girls.” She reached out and stroked each of our cheeks, pausing on mine to rub away what I assumed was leftover chocolate ice cream. “You see, there’s times in a mother’s and father’s lives when we don’t necessarily have the time, or make the time, to be physically--”

“The point is,” my dad interrupted, his eyes darting to meet my mom’s, “We’ve decided to go to couples therapy.”

The two of them paused, searching our faces.

“It’s a good thing,” my mom urged. “A happy thing.”

“The reason we’re telling you this,” my dad said, setting what was left of the almond down on the table, “is because there’ll be a few times when we might bring you girls with, to do a family session.”

“Just to make sure we all get a say in things,” my mom said. “This is a family negotiation.”

I stared at my feet. My socks had holes in them, and my toes were poking out. They looked weird, like little larvae.

“Girls? What do you think?” she asked.

“Okay,” Shannah said.

“Okay,” I said.

It’s not like it was a surprise--things had been weird around the house for a while now. My parents had become masters at just happening to be in different parts of the house at all times; they were modern Houdinis, always finding a way to escape if, God forbid, they did end up in the same room. I looked at Shannah; she was biting her lip, like she does when she’s upset, but she just shrugged at me.

My mom stared at us, her well-plucked eyebrows drawn close. Finally, she released them, and her face broke into one of her elementary school teacher smiles, the kind of smile where her mouth is pulled so tight that it looks like a red rubber band. I was always waiting for it 26

to just burst one day, to pop right off.

“Wonderful,” she said. “Wonderful,” she said again, this time to my dad, who nodded. “That’s wonderful. We thought we’d go to Fingerman’s for dinner, like families do when they have something to celebrate.”

I waited until she looked away, then rolled my eyes at Shannah. As if this day wasn’t already bad enough.

“Mom.” Shannah said. “Last time we went to Fingerman’s, we were waiting to be seated, and this old disgusting guy told me how, if he had his way, he’d keep me barefoot and pregnant from the time I was eighteen. It’s a gross place filled with gross people.”

Shannah was fifteen, but she looked old for her age. I was thirteen, and I looked it. No one said stuff like that to me, and trust me, there were plenty of disgusting old men in our tiny town.

“Shush, now. Fingerman’s is the nicest place in town, and the elderly, no matter how ‘disgusting’ they may seem, are allowed to eat there, too,” my mom said.

“It’s just one dinner,” my dad said, his eyes sympathetic.

In the car on the way there, Shannah and I sat in the back seat, texting each other.

“can u belive this?” she sent.

“i kno.” I sent. “it makes sense, tho.”

“i guess,” she sent.

“mybe itll be good for them,” I sent.

“mybe ill grw feathers out of my ass.”

* * *

We walked into the restaurant, and I smelled that familiar smell of ketchup and Febreze. Fingerman’s was always the same. It was this dingy little buffet that thought it was really clever with its name, as in, you could eat everything with your fingers. Please. The green and white tiles on the floor always looked dirty, and the faded green shades on the windows were always closed, making it hard to see what you were even eating. Shannah and I called it Caveman’s. The teenaged hostess had been texting before we walked in, and looked up, annoyed.

“Hello there,” my dad said, winking. He was always winking at people.

“Yeah, you want a table?”

“Please.”

She grabbed four menus and led us off through the dimness. I imagined her carrying a lantern, like that person who guided Dante through the layers of Hell.

“You can sit here,” she said, motioning to a foldout table with a dusty squirrel figurine in the center.

“At least we got the squirrel table,” Shannah said.

“Yeah, just wave at Ed over there when you want to get drinks,” the hostess said, and walked away.

“Well,” my mom said, smoothing her skirt again. “I hope Ed is a little more polite.”

I glanced at the couple at the table next to us, who were silently working their way through plates of congealed mac and cheese. They were young, the girl pouting a lip piercing, the guy looking like he just woke up from about a billion hours of sleep. I kind of wanted to slap them, to say, “TALK!” but I didn’t, obviously. I imagined what their baby would look like: a sullen kidney bean.

My dad began fussing with his silverware, arranging his knife and fork so that they came out from his plate at different angles.

“Well, I could just about eat a horse,” he said, looking up and winking at me and Shannah.

“Me, too, dad,” I said, staring intensely at a stain on the table cloth. I looked over at Shannah. Her napkin was basically destroyed, shards of it strewn all over her lap.

“I heard from your grandmother the other day,” my mom said.

“Oh?” Shannah said.

“She said her rheumatism’s been terrible lately, that she wants to go on a trip to Florida. She thinks the climate will soothe her joints.”

My dad set down his knife and fork suddenly, toppling over the saltshaker. “What if we all took a trip to Florida?” he said, his voice taking on a high, thin tone. “Family vacation and all that.”

“With Grandma?” Shannah asked.

“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” my mom said, frowning. She swept up the salt with her napkin and made a neat pile on the side of her plate. “A wonderful idea. What do you guys think?”

“With Grandma?” I asked.

“What do you guys want to drink?” said the waiter, slithering out of the shadows. I didn’t think it was particularly hot in the place, but beads of sweat ran down his long nose, skidding onto his tan polo shirt. “My name is Ed; I’ll be helping you out.”

“Heineken, please,” my mom said.

My dad raised his eyebrows. “I’ll have a lemonade,” he said.

Ed scribbled something furiously on his notepad, then turned to me and Shannah, eyes bugging out of his head like a preying mantis. I imagined him ripping the head off of the squirrel figurine and eating it, mantis-style.

“I’ll have a root beer,” I said.

“Me, too,” Shannah said.

“Copycat.”

“Punk.”

“All right,” my dad said. “That’ll be all for the drinks, thank you, sir.” He winked at Ed, somewhat wearily.

I pretended to read my menu, trying to remember the last time we had gone on a family vacation. We’d gone up to our cabin in Northern Minnesota last summer, but my mom didn’t come, even though both she and my dad had the summers off from teaching. It had ended up being a two and a half week vacation, longer than we had ever taken before.

“Why didn’t mom come with?” I had asked my dad one day, as we walked along the beach, looking for shells. “Doesn’t she like the North Shore?”

“Sometimes Mothers need their own vacation,” he had said. “A special, alone vacation.”

“What about Fathers?” I asked. He picked up a shell and examined it for a few seconds before responding, smoothing the sand off of it with his thumb.

“Sometimes Fathers don’t know what we need, April,” he had said. He paused for a moment, but then looked down and winked. “But right now, I could sure use a few more of these shells.”

“Here’s your root beers,” Ed said, his hands outstretched. His palms were so sweaty, he could barely keep a grip on the bottles.

“Buffet’s all yours,” he said, bowing himself away. “The special today is corned beef and hash.”

Every time we went out to eat, my parents had this idea that, before you got your food, you should have to sit and have your soda and chit chat.

“Good conversation is the sauce that makes the food taste so much better!” he would always say, responding to our hungry grumbles.

This particular pre-food conversation seemed to last for ages. Throughout the course of it, my dad had the chance to tell us, in detail, about each of the contenders in the PGA championship, which I think is a golf thing, and my mom had the chance to drink three Heinekens.

Eventually, Shannah sighed and got up, heading towards the flickering lights of the buffet, and we all followed. The food was sketchy, as usual. From what I could tell, my options were: pink mush, green slime, textured brown-ness, and some sticky white stuff. I noticed that Shannah took a little of everything, so I did, too, in solidarity. At least we could complain about it together later. My dad whistled as he spooned some of the pink stuff onto his plate.

“Whoo-ee! What have we got here?” he said, wiggling his eyebrows at me and Shannah.

“I think that would be a flesh of some sort,” Shannah said.

“Marvelous,” my mom said. “My flesh intake has been far too low lately.” I think she meant it as a joke, but my dad frowned, for some reason.

We made our way back to the table, and my parents began to eat ravenously, probably so that they wouldn’t have to talk to each other. Shannah rolled her eyes and sipped her root beer. For my part, I poked at my food, testing out its glop-factor with my fork. Finger food, my butt. Then, something caught my eye; a little black ant was making its way across the table. It skittered along, straight into my mom’s pile of green gloop.

“Mom,” I murmured.

“Hmm?” My mom said, mouth full.

“Mom,” I said. “Stop!” I shoved her plate under her nose.

“April, what the, why are you--” She stopped suddenly and gagged. “Oh, my god. Jim, they’re ants. There are ants in the food.” She spit the contents of her mouth into her napkin and began coughing.

“What’s all this about one little ant?” my dad said, winking at Shannah. Squinting in the dim lighting, he took his phone out of his pocket and turned on the flashlight, shining it on his food. “Sweet Jesus of Nazareth,” he said, gaping. An ant strolled casually across his fork. He began to gag.

“Dad, no,” Shannah said, her voice rising in alarm. My dad had a delicate stomach; last time he found a hair in his soup, he had to leave the room and lie down. His eyes began to water. “No, dad,” Shannah said.

“Jim, go to the bathroom, for Christ’s sake,” my mom said.

“I’m fine,” my dad said. He wiped some sweat from his forehead. “I feel just fine.”

“You look green,” my mom said. “Just go to the bathroom, Jim.”

“I told you, I’m—” He covered his mouth suddenly, then shook his head. “I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

“Everything is not fine, Jim. You have a delicate stomach, you need to go to the bathroom. Don’t be such a bullhead.”

My dad shook his head, pressing a napkin to his mouth.

“Get over your pride and go to the goddamn bathroom,” my mom said.

“For the last time, Mary, I am FINE,” my dad said, then leaned over the side of the table and horked.

My mom shook her head in disgust, rolling her eyes.

“Check, please,” she called.

I held my napkin over my mouth; let me tell you, Fingerman’s did not look much better coming back up. Soon, Ed came running over, his buggy eyes darting around the table in panic.

“What is going on over here?” he demanded, poking the table for emphasis. His finger left a little moist spot on the tablecloth.

“Your food,” my mom said, her mouth snapping into a scowl, “Is full of ants.”

“I’m sorry ma’am, but that can’t be,” Ed said. “We have the strictest of health inspections in place here at Fingerman’s, and we pride ourselves on--”

“Oh yeah?” My mom said, getting up from her chair. “Why don’t you inspect my husband’s vomit, then? It was made fresh, right here in Fingerman’s.”

Me and Shannah raised our eyebrows at each other; those Heinekens had certainly given her confidence.

My dad got up from his chair, wiping his mouth again and again with his napkin.

“Sir, I hate to do this,” Ed said, addressing my dad now, “but we’re going to have to add on a small cleaning fee to your total tab today.” He ran his fingers through his hair, blinking repeatedly. “It’s just that it’s our policy on occasions like this.”

“On occasions like this?” my mom said, grabbing her plate and shoving it under Ed’s nose. “Tell me, just how often, exactly, do your customers vomit?”

“It’s fine, Mary, I’ll just pay it, I should’ve made it to the bathroom,” my dad said, running his fingers through his hair.

“No, Jim, you will not pay it. God, that is just like you, giving up at the first sign of trouble.”

For a second, my dad looked shocked, like he’d been slapped. Then, his face got red. His voice was angry, just above a whisper, but me and Shannah could still hear.

“Oh, so now it’s my fault?”

“What is?”

“Oh, you know very well. And here I thought I was trying.”

“I don’t, actually; please enlighten me. Are you saying it’s not your fault that, for the past year, you’ve been more distant than Pluto?”

My dad was silent for a moment, then turned to Ed.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to use the restroom,” he said, then got up and walked away.

My mom sat down and looked at her lap. At this point, everyone in the restaurant was staring. Ed looked more panicked than ever; he clearly had no clue how to respond to the situation. All of a sudden, my mom looked up, her rubber-band smile snapping into place.

“I’m so glad we were all able to go out to dinner together,” she said. “Besides the few ants, it’s been really nice.”

She looked at me and Shannah, and her eyes welled up a little bit, her smile drooping.

“Who am I kidding? This was a terrible idea. I’m sorry, girls.”

“No, mom, I had a great time,” Shannah said. “Honest. I didn’t even get any ants. See?”

She held her plate up for my mom to see, who smiled a little.

“That’s sweet of you, honey, but you don’t have to say that,” she said.

“I had a nice time, too, mom,” I said. It was obviously a lie- I wasn’t as good at lying as Shannah- but it still seemed to cheer her up a little.

“I’m a very lucky mom,” she said, giving each of our hands a little squeeze.

Just then, my dad came back from the bathroom. His cheeks were flushed, and he looked a little dazed.

“I puked again,” he said, sitting down, “and while I was doing so, I realized you were right, Mary; we’re not paying the fee.”

“Really?” she said.

“Really. We’ll use the money we would’ve spent on it to get takeout on the way home; have a proper family dinner.”

The lines around my mom’s eyes softened a little bit.

“Let’s go, girls,” she said.

The two of them got up, exiting the restaurant. Me and Shannah followed. We got into the car in silence, and I stared out the window, trying to process what had just happened. My phone lit up; I had a text from Shannah. It read,

“sesh 1 of therapy = cmplete.”