Chapter 2 — Forty Minutes

MargaretI will not be spoken to like that at my own table.

DavidYou've said what you wanted to say. Now sit there.

RobertDavid, that's your mother.

DavidI'm aware of who she is.

David pushed his chair back, walked the length of the room, picked the broken plate up off the floor in two pieces and set them on the sideboard.

Then he pulled out the chair beside Sarah and sat down in it.

PrestonAre we doing this now? At dinner?

DavidYou've all had forty minutes.

RobertForty minutes of what?

DavidI timed it. From when we sat down to when Mother put a plate on the floor. Forty-one minutes.

MargaretYou timed your own family?

DavidEvery dinner since March.

PrestonThat's unhinged, that's actually unhinged —

DavidIn March it was her accent. In April it was whether she'd finished college. In June you asked her, in front of nine people, whether she'd signed anything before the wedding.

RobertThat was a fair question.

DavidIn June, Dad, you asked my wife at your own table whether she'd signed a prenuptial agreement.

RobertIt's a normal question in a family like ours.

DavidShe had. Three years ago. Fourteen pages. Bill drafted it. You knew that, because you asked him.

RobertI may have.

DavidYou did. On the eleventh of June, by email.

MargaretHow do you know what your father emails?

DavidBecause since March I've been paying attention.

SarahDavid.

DavidIt's all right.

SarahDavid, I don't need this.

DavidI know you don't.

David reached down, picked up the leather case, and set it on the table in front of him.

PrestonWhat's that?

DavidPaperwork.

MargaretWe are not doing business at dinner.

DavidNo. We're doing family at dinner. That's what you keep calling it.