Page 16 of Unforgettable

“Adam, dinner’s ready!”

Mom scoffed as she placed one of the bowls on the table. “Well, I could have done that.”

“Yes, well, then you should have.”

Once I heard Adam’s door close, I took my seat at the table across from my mother while my dad took his seat at the head of the table.

We sat in silence, awkwardly staring at each other as we waited for Adam to make his entrance. There wasn’t any point in trying to start a conversation when I knew that they had little to no interest in my life or what was going on in it. I could have joined a convent or moved out of the country in the past few months, and they wouldn’t have known until they invited me to a spontaneous family dinner.

Mom claimed the dinner invitation was because they missed me, but I knew better. Something was up, and the sooner my brother sat down, the quicker I would find out what it was.

“Let me go see—” I began.

“Oh, there he is,” my mother cheerfully chimed, throwing her hands out wide. “Sit, sit.”

Adam grunted in response and slid into the chair beside me. Not much had changed since I saw him the month before. His blond hair was still unkempt and sticking out in several directions, and he hadn’t shaved in weeks. At least he smelled clean. But at twenty-one, that was the bare minimum I would have hoped for. Being clean was required.

“Well, hello, James Dean,” I quipped, watching him sink lower into his chair out of the corner of my eye.

“Lovely to see you, too, Heather.” He reached for the green beans, but Mom batted his hand away.

“We should say grace first,” she said, reaching for my father’s hand, who took it with a smile.

Adam and I both scoffed at the same time and gave each other matching bewildered looks.

“Seriously?” he asked before I had the chance to.

“Yes, seriously. We should give thanks for this meal.”

I was in the twilight zone. “Mom, when’s the last time any of us stepped foot into a church?” I asked but reached for Adam’s hand.

“I think if any one of us walked into a church, we’d be smote immediately,” he said, and I suppressed a chuckle.

“Adam,” my father said in his usual authoritative tone.

“Glenn,” Adam said in the same voice, mocking my father.

“Amanda, why don’t you say it?” Mom offered from across the table, and I couldn’t bear to suppress my laugh that time. But she only smiled brightly, eagerly awaiting a prayer from her only daughter. They all bowed their heads, waiting for me to begin.

“Umm…” I stuttered, unable to think of anything that would even remotely sound like a prayer. Adam cleared his throat next to me and gave an expectant look, raising his eyebrows.

For several seconds, the room was silent as they all waited for me to begin thanking God and Jesus and whomever else for the food in front of us, but my brain didn’t work that way anymore. I thought about thanking the restaurant where it came from, and then I contemplated pulling a full Aunt Bethany fromNational Lampoon’s Christmas Vacationand singing the national anthem, but ultimately thought better of it.

So, instead, I dug deep into the recesses of my mind and remembered a prayer we said in Sunday School when I was no more than five years old. “God is great. God is good. Let us thank him for our food, amen.”

Simple and to the point and it rhymed—I liked it.

They each raised their heads and looked at me like I had two heads, but she never specified how she wanted me to say the blessing, just that I should. At least I said it without too much of a fight.

Silence invaded the room once more. We each scooped food onto our plates and began eating without saying another word. It was when I was sipping my water, hoping it would suddenly turn into wine, that my father finally spoke up.

“Well, your mother and I have something we actually wanted to talk to you about.”

“And there it is,” Adam muttered around a forkful of chicken.

“What does that mean?” Mom sounded offended, and it was still too early in the dinner for arguing.

“Nothing, Mom. Just tell us,” I chimed in before Adam could run off on the tangent he was so clearly begging to begin.

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