A Dish Served Cold

My coffee cup shakes as I pick it up, readily giving away my unspoken sense of unease like an innocent bystander pointing out the precise location of a hit-and-run (“right over here, Officer, look!”). I steady my cup as best I can before taking a generous gulp of the bitter liquid. “This isn’t going to be pretty,” I think as I watch my Uncle John (no, not the one I used to pick blueberries with on the family farm growing up, but the other one. The Uncle John who spent most of his twenties doing hard time for a situation that no one ever had the decency to explain to me in depth, but I’ve heard rumors) stare a hole into my father’s open menu that he's only pretending to look busy reading. 

In a desperate effort to escape my current situation, I glance around the restaurant and my eyes land on the family having brunch next to us – plates of Belgian waffles, scrambled eggs, and avocado toast taunting my growling stomach. Trying my best not to let them see that I’m staring, I proceed to open my menu and act like I’m studying the appetizers (I am my father’s daughter, I suppose) with an intensity that probably looks quite staged to an outsider. Gosh, how my heart aches to be over there with them. I watch the three children, dressed in their Sunday best, laugh obnoxiously over the silly crossword puzzles they put on the back of the kids’ menu while the adults, oozing sophistication and good conversation, clink their wine glasses together with a kind of cheerful “clink” sound that I never heard growing up (or if I did, then it must have been drowned out by the passive aggressive arguments that always seemed to act as an unpleasant garnish to every meal I ate. While other families folded their hands and said grace, we clenched our fists under the table and recited the only prayer I knew by heart: “Don’t blame this on me. This is all your fault.”). 

Picking up my coffee cup again in yet another awkward attempt at appearing normal, I peer over its blue-rimmed edge and wonder if it’s large enough to shield my face when all of this pent-up, one-vacation-a-year, “why didn’t you send me a Christmas card?” familial tension inevitably explodes right before my eyes like a bomb. I briefly scan the menu that’s now balancing unsteadily on my lap to see if they happen to be serving my personal specialty, Collateral Damage (made fresh daily), to no avail. 

Just before I let out a cynical laugh at my inherited series of unfortunate events, my second (or maybe third, I’m never quite sure) cousin, Madison (no, not the one that buys me ugly hats for my birthday every year despite never having seen me wear a single hat in my entire life...the other one. The nice, quiet one with the fancy BMW and a tendency to cry over just about everything) launches herself from her chair and puts her hands — newly manicured and painted a sickly neon green color — to her freshly highlighted head. “Is nobody going to say it?”

Everyone stares at her in bewilderment. She’s never been a person of many words, especially weighty ones like these. “I can’t take this anymore,” she exclaims in a pitch that’s about three octaves higher than it usually is. Keeping true to her trademark, tears begin to well up in her heavily mascaraed eyes as her husband in the chair next to her reaches for her hand with a look of pure alarm (or maybe embarrassment, I’m never quite sure) in his. Trying his best to console her (I begrudgingly wonder what model of shiny new BMW will magically appear in her driveway next week as a consolation prize. “Oh, you poor, beautiful thing,” he’ll surely say while stroking her hair with the unrestrained loyalty of a golden retriever when they get home), he puts his steady hands over her trembling ones and makes a futile attempt to sit her back down. Clearly not having any of it, she breaks free from his loving grasp and looks my dad straight in the eye with such a menacing glare that even I shift around in my seat due to the sudden, overwhelming sense of discomfort that’s now permeating the room. Before I have time to release the breath that’s now tangled up like a fishing net at the back of my throat, the words “You’re a terrible person and father” fall from her quivering lips with such a hot, biting anger that I jump in my chair like someone just spilled hot coffee in my lap. “You know exactly what you did to me, your daughter, your brother, and to everyone around this table, so why not just come clean and admit it while we’re all gathered around for the show. It’d be a real shame if we all left this place without ordering dessert, don’t you think?” 

Taken aback by not only the shock of the message but the even greater shock of who's delivering it (“Such a nice girl”, my dad once said of Madison as she rode away on her new purple bicycle after one of our many sleepovers. “I wish you were more like her.”), my dad puts his hands in the air like he's about to be arrested and his menu clatters to the floor. With our table having now caught the unwanted attention of nearby diners, I reach for my half-empty water glass and begin chugging nervously, hoping to God that maybe I’ll figure out a way to drown myself before my father opens his mouth. Realizing my plan isn’t working, I quickly ditch the glass and grip the edge of my seat instead, bracing myself like one might do just before the big drop on a rollercoaster. "Unfortunately this rollercoaster isn’t one I can get off," I think. "This is just my life." I watch my father lower his hands back to his side and wonder what color casket Madison will want. Maybe blue. It’ll match her eyes. 

To everyone’s surprise, though, he remains silent. The kind of silent that makes your blood curdle with anticipation of what godawful thing will surely follow. A few more moments pass and still nothing happens. A palpable hush falls over the entire restaurant as my dad places his unused napkin on the table, pushes his chair back, and walks right out of the restaurant without a single word. Daring to be the first one to stop holding their breath, my Uncle John lets out of grating guffaw and says, “I can’t believe I ever took the blame for that guy. What a fool I was. I hope he gets what he deserves.” Everyone lets out a forced, uneasy laugh — each one of us now painfully aware of the empty seat at the head of the table — and I quickly realize that, much like revenge, generational trauma is a dish best served cold.