Man, I would shovel acres of snow to have a place of my own.

Meanwhile, I set the same kitchen table I’ve set my whole life. It’s square, with a joint right down the center. My mother and I always sit on one side, and my father and Kyle sit on the other. It’s a damn metaphor if I ever saw one.

“How was the desk job today?” my father asks as he shuffles into the room and pulls out the chair on his side. He says desk job the way some people say acupuncture. Like only a crazy person would get a job at an office.

“Fine. Busy.” I stick to one word answers with him. We have so little in common and don’t see eye to eye on anything.

“If they’re so busy, why don’t they take you full time?” Dad sits down gingerly, accepting a plate from my mother, looking down at the beige blob of food on it with a grimace.

Please don’t critique the food, I privately beg him. I can tolerate my dad’s ire toward me, but when he picks on my mother, I tend to lose my cool.

“I mean, how can you learn the ad business if you’re only there four afternoons a week?” he asks, picking up his fork with a wary glance at his dinner.

“I learn plenty,” I say mildly. The truth is that I haven’t said much about my job in Burlington. Nor have I said a word about the college course I’m hoping to take this spring. He won’t approve. And there’s no law that says I have to explain myself to him.

I’m just going to do my own thing and give the bare minimum amount of information to anyone who asks. That’s how you keep the peace in this house.

“You didn’t go to the gym?” my mother asks, just to keep the conversation flowing.

A wave of discomfort rolls through me, because the question makes me think of Roderick. Again. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to think of that guy and not feel embarrassed. “I almost made it to the gym. But Kyle called me and sent me home to do his chores instead.”

“It is his night, isn’t it?” my mother asks. “Where is that boy?”

“Tending bar for a couple hours, for extra cash.” I shovel in some more of my mother’s casserole and chew so I won’t say what I’m thinking.

“It’s good to earn extra cash,” my father says, excusing Kyle. “We’re going to have a tough season around here.”

“Why?” I set down my fork. “Did we lose an animal?”

“No.” He shakes his head.

That’s when the kitchen door opens and Kyle steps through, grinning. “Am I just in time for dinner?”

“Yes you are!” my father says, smiling for the first time, because his eldest—his boy—is home.

“It’s my super power.” Kyle hangs his coat on a hook.

“Sally, get him a plate,” my dad says.