Page 6 of Fun Together
I text back,10 works. See you then.
3
Eli
Friday night dinnershave been a staple in the Miller household ever since I can remember.
I’ve always looked forward to them, even though I did go through the usual teenage phase of wanting to be anywhere other than the dinner table on Friday night. It was the only thing my parents ever required of us. I could go hog wild, as long as I had my ass in the chair at seven o’clock every Friday.
Even though we’ve all aged out of the attendance requirement, we never really stopped having the dinners. There were several times I would FaceTime in back when I lived in New York.
Tonight, we have one addition joining us at the big round table in the dining room. My older brother Emmett’s daughter, Florence, is sitting between me and my younger sister, Evie. She looks down at the green beans on her plate, scrunching up her freckled nose, like they’re a big pile of worms she’s being forced to eat.
“You’ve had green beans before, Flo,” Emmett says. He looks tired. But then again, he always looks tired, like he came right out of the womb with his pointer finger and thumb pinched above his nose.
“But these look different,” she says, poking at them with her fork. “They’re not soft like those.”
“Probably because they didn’t come from a can,” Evie chimes in. If Emmett always looks tired, Evie is whatever the exact opposite of that is. She’s a walking ball of energy, like she was born with Red Bull running through her veins.
Emmett glowers at her. “Canned vegetables are better than no vegetables.”
“You don’t have to eat them, honey,” my mom says from her spot at the head of the table.
“Two bites,” Emmett says by way of attempting to compromise with a four-year-old.
She points to my plate. “Eli isn’t eating any.” She’s right, I hate green beans. But I know when I need to take one for the team.
“I’m saving the best for last,” I say, scooping some green beans onto my plate and stabbing my fork into one. I nod to her plate, encouraging her to do the same.
“Okay,” she says solemnly, like eating this green bean is her final gauntlet.
We take a synchronized bite. I still hate them, but I pull a dramatic face. “Mmm, delicious.”
She giggles and then takes another bite before looking at her dad like,Are you happy now?
Dinner continues as it always does. Evie and I dominate the conversation while Emmett frowns down at his phone. He’s currently renovating a house, and he seems to be in a constant state of frustration about it. We’ve been calling it his “divorce project” since he bought the house shortly after separating from his wife, Mara, last year. No one, not even Mom, knows what happened with them. It’s kind of an unspoken agreement we’ve all made with each other to not bring it up.
Dad methodically eats everything on his plate, one food at a time, while Mom nods and laughs along to whatever we want to talk about.
Evie has now steered us in the direction of my parents’ upcoming thirtieth anniversary. “You have to have a party,” she says.
“We’ll have a party for our fortieth,” my mom says, attempting to brush off the suggestion.
“What if you die before that?” Evie asks.
“What if we all die tomorrow?” my dad asks, saying the first words he’s uttered in about fifteen minutes.
“No one is dying,” my mom says, nodding deliberately toward Florence.
Emmett covers Flo’s ears. “We’re all technically dying.”
Mom tosses her napkin onto the table. “Good Lord, enough about dying.”
“So, it’s settled then,” Evie says with a pleased grin. “We’ll have a party.”
“I like parties,” I say.
“I love parties!” Florence shouts.
