At the picnic, the air smelled like charcoal and sugar—cheap ketchup turning warm in the sun, sticky soda sweating through plastic cups, my father’s grill hissing every time he pressed a spatula down like he was taming the flames by force of habit. The yard had that late-summer look, patchy green and stubborn brown, a few tired flowers leaning toward the fence like they were trying to eavesdrop. Kids shrieked and ran in loops that made no sense, and the adults sat around a long folding table that bowed in the middle under bowls of potato salad and baked beans. Paper plates fluttered whenever the breeze picked up, and someone—my mother—kept patting napkins down like she could iron the day into behaving.
It was one of those Saturdays my parents insisted on, the kind that had become tradition because traditions are easier than honest conversations. Every year, the same speeches: “Isn’t it nice to have everyone together?” and “We should do this more often,” and “Family is everything.” The words were always said with the expectation that hearing them would make them true.
