Page 84 of Afterglow
“Hey, Pipe!” she calls. “Remember when Fletch wanted to watchThe Mask, like, five times on Boxing Day?”
“Please, shut up.”
“Watch?” Piper rolls her eyes and jerks her fist in the air. “I think we all know what he was doing.”
Mom grumbles. “Piper, cut it out. That’s disgusting.”
“What he was doing wasdefinitelydisgusting.”
I try to ignore the teasing and refocus on the game of tag. Behraz faces the back wall of the fence, hands moving over the painted wood, clearly lost. “Ohhh, I’ve caught someone,” she sings.
Raven wraps around her leg and pulls. “That is not a real people! That a fence!”
Miller facepalms.
“Aha!” Bea tags the three-year-old’s arm lightly. “Gotcha!” She slides the bandana from her eyes. Raven beams back, still latched on. “Did you want to get caught?”
My little niece replies with a series of nods.
“Howsneaky.”
“That’s not how it works!” Piper’s eldest, Lila, puts her hands on her hips and rolls her eyes. “Babies, man.”
Piper hooks an arm around her daughter’s neck. “Alright, kiddo, you can discuss the injustice of it all after getting washed up. Dinner’s not gonna eat itself.”
The evening air chills with the setting sun, a pink afterglow brightening the sky. Bea twirls the looped bandana around a finger. “Should I save this for later?”
“Shhh,” I say through a laugh, leading her inside. “I’ve gotten enough shit from my sisters already. They don’t need any more ammunition.”
We settle around the table and get slices of turkey handed to us, passing the other parts of the meal back and forth: a salad, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, candied yams. I serve myself some cranberry sauce.
“It’s the only thing I made at home.” Mom points to the bowl with a fork. She’s not a great cook as is, and there are too manypeople who don’t want to cook instead, so for the past few years, we all chip in and get Thanksgiving dinner catered. “Your friend sent the cranberries in there from his family’s farm. What’s his name, again?”
“Oh, Landon?” Bea answers.
“Yep, that’s the one.”
Behraz nods. “The farm is out in the middle of nowhere Ontario, but it’s gorgeous.”
“You’ve been there?” Mom adds some more salad to Dad’s plate, much to his chagrin.
“Oh, yeah. They invited me out there for the holidays when I couldn’t visit my folks. Landon’s married to Indi, my ex-boss who’s now my best friend.” She chews on a bite of salad. “We worked at the same law firm in Ottawa.”
“Ahh,so you’re a lawyer?” Greer pries. “We’ve all been wondering?—”
“Yeah.” A proud smile appears on her face. “I’m a lawyer.”
My nephews and nieces get louder and louder. Miller hushes them from the kids’ table and throws her voice. “What kind of lawyer are you, Behraz?”
“The firm specializes in libel and slander cases for high-profile clients,” she explains, “but it’s not what I’m interested in or articled for. And you can call me Bea.” A silent swallow of wine splits the statement. “Everyone does.”
“She’s being humble.” My hand slides to hers under the table, grasping and lacing our fingers together. “Bea has an apprenticeship starting in January with a prestigious firm in London.”
Piper gasps while taking a sip from her glass, and I can’t tell whether she’s being facetious or sincere. “Fancy! What would you do there?”
“Mostly learning more about international law, reviewing past rulings, collecting evidence, observing court, stuff like that.”
“Ooh, would you be working with war criminals like Amal Clooney?” Greer asks. The uneasy pit in my stomach isn’t budging. I don’t know if they’re actually interested or if they’re gonna somehow tear her apart like a bunch of vultures.
