Dinner tonight. We are gathering at 8p. Thomas and Patrice, our young new colleague Olivia, Richard Langham, and your aunt and uncle will be there. They are visiting for the weekend and they want to see you. You could wear the black pants. I am making the cassoulet. Your father is making his salad. 8p sharp. Will you be there?

That was all.

Jojo raised her eyebrows. “Do Jewish people have constipation because of their bodies or their anal-retentive personalities?”

I forced a laugh. The spot above my lip was radiating heat, like it always did when my body wanted to cry and I wouldn’t let it. Whether they were tears of relief or anger, disappointment or sadness, I didn’t know.

“I’m going to Celeste’s party tonight,” Jojo said, perceiving something. Celeste was one of her friends from college. “Want to come instead?”

The party should be safe; I’d met Celeste before and she had regarded me with what seemed like casual kindness, and I really didn’t know many people from their year. I picked at the cuticle of my thumb, then stuck it in my mouth to chew off the dead skin. I could skip the dinner party, not see Langham again, not get the trapped feeling, almost terror, that enveloped me as soon as I stepped into our apartment—my parents’ apartment—each time. But who was this “young new colleague”? Would she sit in my seat? What if my mom already knew she liked cassoulet and was making it specially? What if my dad laughed—at her joke?

The kitchen timer dinged.

“My waffles!” Jojo said, and bounded through the archway separating the living room from the kitchen. The timer was a kitschy thing she had found in a junk shop, and she used it as much as possible, even when unnecessary. It looked like an egg, with a plastic chick hatching from the top. His expression struck me as panicked: I’m not ready to hatch! I watched her bend over the waffle maker and lift the heavy metal lid, studied the topmost knot of her spine, peeking out above her shirt.

“Perfect,” she whispered. Then, to me: “I have more batter—want?”

I shook my head.

I mentally scanned the email again. Why had my parents invited Langham, I wondered, when they had just had him over last week? Usually there was a rotating cast of guests; was it possible they did know about us and were waiting until I arrived, to give us a private “talk,” or a public one? Would they dare to chastise Langham in such a setting? I couldn’t imagine. Which would be worse: my parents confronting me in front of their friends and colleagues, my aunt and uncle, and Langham himself—or sitting face-to-face with my parents, alone? Would they speak to me together, or would my mother speak to me on her own? My father wouldn’t do it without her, I was almost certain. I could go to the party with Jojo, avoid any of these eventualities, hide out in my new life—yet if they did know, if they did want to confront me, wouldn’t skip ping dinner exacerbate whatever was to come? Or, worse, would it make them finally give up on me?