For exactly two seconds.
Two seconds where fourteen adults could have done the right thing.
Two seconds where someone—anyone—could have said, “Aiden, absolutely not.” Or turned to Jessica and asked, “Why would he say that?” Or even looked at me with some flicker of embarrassment, some signal that they understood how wrong it was.
Two seconds.
Then Marcus—my brother-in-law, Jessica’s husband—snorted.
The sound broke into laughter, loud and barking, like he couldn’t help himself. It rolled out of him with that careless ease of someone who’d never had to worry about what laughter costs.
Uncle Robert slapped the table with his palm and wheezed. “Oh, man,” he gasped, wiping the corners of his eyes like he’d just heard the best joke of his life. “Out of the mouths of babes!”
My mother’s shoulders shook. She didn’t laugh loudly; hers was a dry chuckle, sandpapery, but her eyes glowed with that strange pleased amusement she always saved for moments when Jessica showed her teeth.
Jessica took a slow sip of her wine. She didn’t look at me. She didn’t even glance toward the fork in my potatoes.
She kept her gaze on her son like he’d just recited a poem at a school play.
