“I wouldn’t ask you to,” he said. “I think any and all of us should be understanding when it comes to old wounds.”

Old wounds, I thought.

Were they that old? Didn’t ‘old’ presume they’d healed over or that things had been addressed or mended somehow?

“I guess,” I said. “What Mom did, I was pretty vocal about why I was upset about it. Did Crystal explain why I was bothered by what you did?”

“She deflected my question when I asked.”

“If you noticed it was a deflection,” Crystal said. “I need to work on my patter more.”

“Just a bit more,” my dad said, smiling slightly.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said.

“It’s okay,” I said. I paused. “You realize, Dad, the reason I felt betrayed wasn’t that I thought you were in on it or anything, right? I felt betrayed because you let yourself believe Mom’s words more than you believed everything you saw in years of living with me, after visiting me in the asylum, after seeing how I function and how I don’t function.”

“I’m not going to try to defend myself,” he said. “You’re absolutely right. I let myself be stupid. I have a way of doing that when I’m around your mom.”

“I just don’t understand how you wouldn’t just stop and realize it doesn’t make sense. When you know about the nightmares and the fact I hadn’t flown in months, and the fact I don’t even want to talk about her, you’ll believe I’d be willing to meet her face to face and have a meal?”

“It’s not that clear-cut. Your mother is a clever woman, to the point she can outsmart herself. She has good instincts when it comes to getting people on her side, too. I’ve been missing home, the past few years, and seeing the woman I still love being warm for the first time in…”

He trailed off.

“Since twenty-eleven,” I said.

“Yeah,” my dad said. “With food I’ve been aching for for just as long already cooking, the kitchen and barbecue rich with that smell. Things, like I said, that make me stupid.”

“What food was it?” I asked.

“Laser seared kebabs,” Crystal said.

I bit my lip. Family recipe. With my lip still between my teeth, I said, “Okay.”

“I’m not making excuses,” my dad said. “I should have clued in. When Amy turned up and I knew you were coming, it wasn’t framed like a reconciliation. It was framed as you knowing everyone was coming and you would have things to get off your chest. Carol said she would referee and I knew it would go poorly if it was just her, so I offered to help. While I was offering I wasn’t stopping to think.”