You always knew your father’s sixtieth birthday would be a performance.
Not a celebration, not really. A performance. The kind of family event where people dressed up resentment, plated old power on expensive serving trays, and called it tradition because that sounded prettier than fear. The invitations had gone out six weeks earlier on thick cream cardstock with gold lettering, because your mother believed good paper could make ugly people look respectable.
The party was held at your parents’ house in Oak Ridge, an affluent suburb outside Columbus where the lawns were trimmed with military precision and every porch looked like it had been staged for a magazine spread. Your father loved that house because it announced things before he even opened his mouth. The wide brick entrance. The double staircase in the foyer. The stone patio out back where he grilled steaks in a starched apron and acted like feeding people was proof of character.
By six o’clock, the place was full.
