My sister’s son flung a dinner fork at me and yelled, “Mom says you’re basically the hired help.” The whole table laughed. I was gone before dessert ever hit the plates…
The fork didn’t just hit my shoulder.
It slammed into the thin bone above my collar with a bright, sharp sting—hard enough that my whole upper body jerked, hard enough that my skin seemed to buzz for a second like it couldn’t decide whether to bruise or burn. The fork bounced off me, spun once in the air like a thrown coin, then landed in my mashed potatoes with a soft, wet thud. A smear of gravy sprayed across the white tablecloth, splattering in a sloppy arc that looked, for a ridiculous instant, like a modern art piece titled Humiliation.
For a heartbeat, I couldn’t move.
