Whatever the reason, I found myself stepping closer to my father, close enough that the flickering flames from the grill cast dancing shadows across both our faces.
“Fine,” I said, my voice low but carrying a sharpness I barely recognized as my own. “You want me gone? You’ll get exactly what you’re asking for.”
He laughed, that booming sound that had intimidated me since childhood, and waved his tongs at me dismissively like I was an irritating insect buzzing around his barbecue. “Oh yeah? And where exactly are you going to go, sweetheart? You’ve got no savings. You’ve got nowhere to run to. You think you can make it on your own? You can barely manage your own life.”
I didn’t answer. The words I wanted to say—the truth I’d been sitting on for months, nurturing it like a secret garden—stayed locked behind my teeth. Instead, I just smiled, a small, knowing expression that clearly unsettled him more than any argument could have. His eyes narrowed slightly, trying to read what that smile meant, what I might be planning.
The rest of the evening blurred into an uncomfortable haze of forced normalcy. I helped serve food with mechanical efficiency, refilled drinks, cleared plates, performed all the expected duties of a good daughter at a family gathering. But in my mind, gears were turning, plans were solidifying, decisions were being made with crystalline clarity. He didn’t know—none of them knew—what I’d been working toward for the past eight months. The second job I’d taken at the twenty-four-hour diner, working overnight shifts after my regular office hours. The careful budgeting, the sacrifices, the appointments with the mortgage broker. The home inspection I’d passed two weeks ago. The closing documents I’d signed just three days before this barbecue.
