Then he pushed his plate away.

“I’m done,” he said.

Trevor strode over to the table, picked up Mike’s plate, and slammed it back down in front of him. Our glasses vibrated in unison and the nearly empty bottle of No Name barbecue sauce toppled over onto its side. Kelli put her hands over her ears and began to hum.

“Trevor,” I said after a moment. He turned to me.

“Do you know,” said Trevor, “how ashamed your mother was of you?”

I told myself: This feels like a punch in the gut because it was meant to be a punch in the gut. It was wielded like a punch in the gut. But you don’t have to respond to it like a punch in the gut. You don’t have to agree. That is, don’t crumple — don’t cave in. I glanced over at Mike to see if he was still made of stone, but he’d relaxed a little now that Trevor was addressing me. I was already beginning to understand Trevor’s rhythms via Mike’s instinctive strategies. You keep your shield up until the adversary’s back is turned. And then you take your breather.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m sorry I said Irene was isolated. Obviously she wasn’t. I just meant —”

“She was fuckin isolated,” said Trevor. “She was the loneliest woman I ever fucking met, if you wanna know the truth!”

I shook my head, because this wasn’t true. The choir. The committees. The bake sales.

“She had friends,” I said.

“She was sick!” said Trevor. “You know what happens to friends when friends get sick? Friends fucking leave! And who’s left then? Family! Only Rini didn’t have that, did she? She was lucky if she got a lousy fuckin phone call every other month!”

The kitchen was reverberating with the noise of Trevor’s voice. It disoriented me — this was not Irene Petrie’s kitchen as I had ever experienced it before. And neither had my sister. Kelli was actively trying to drown Trevor out as she rocked with her hands over her ears, muttering NoTrebie NoTrebie NoTrebie No. Mike, to my surprise, had resumed eating his burger. It was like he had side-stepped this reality and gone back to the more peaceful one from a few moments before — the reality where I hadn’t angered Trevor and all was well.

“She always told me she was fine!” I felt a damp heat begin to prickle from my armpits and I knew I was rising to Trevor’s anger despite myself.

“And that was great fuckin news for you, wasn’t it? Because you never had to lift a finger! She didn’t need some goddamn ‘team,’ she needed her daughter! But you were too busy seeing to your own needs, I guess. You were too busy being selfish and getting massages and manicures and hitting the bars and god knows what else!”

I almost began to laugh. Trevor, it seemed to me, was veering off the rails.

“Hitting the bars,” I repeated.