“It is wonderful to see your hard work recognized,” she said. “Your father was just saying how much we need some good news around here.”
She turned her gaze back to me.
The soft look disappeared, replaced by the cool, assessing squint she used when checking for dust on the mantle.
“Some of us have to work twice as hard for our bonuses, Savannah,” she said.
The phrase hung in the warm room.
I did not correct her.
I did not mention the procurement override I had secured the previous Tuesday, or the signed retention agreement currently sitting in my desk drawer in Fort Worth.
“Dean deserves the credit,” I said.
My mother adjusted her emerald collar, smoothing the silk flat against her collarbone with two fingers.
“We just want tonight to be about family,” she said. “No competition, no bragging about corporate salaries.”
“I have no intention of bragging,” I said.
Dean stopped pacing and looked toward the hallway that led to the garage.
“Where is Dad anyway?” he asked.
Uncle Charles was standing near the curb when I walked outside at four o’clock.
He was wearing his usual khaki trousers and a starch-stiff plaid shirt, his hands clasped behind his back.
He was staring at the empty gravel turnaround beside the double garage.
It was the exact spot where my father usually parked his old, rusted utility trailer.
“Your mother made Frank move the trailer to the vacant lot down the road,” Charles said, his voice a slow, dry drawl. “Said it looked like a junkyard.”
“It does,” I said.
“Well,” Charles said, looking at the empty concrete. “Leaves a lot of space. You planning on parking something here?”
I kept my arms crossed against the cool breeze.
“I brought my sedan,” I said. “It is parked on the street.”
He looked at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
He whistled softly, a low, three-note tune that meant he was putting pieces together in his head.
“You have that look you get when you are about to sign a major supply contract,” he said.
“I am just here for the dinner, Charles,” I said.
“Sure,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver pocketknife, turning it over in his palm. “But you do not usually drive all the way from the city just to watch your brother eat three pounds of ribeye.”
“It is Dad’s sixtieth birthday,” I said.
“That it is,” Charles said. “Sixty years of Frank being right about everything. That is a long run for any man.”
He looked down the street, where the oaks were dropping their dry brown leaves onto the asphalt.
“I hear Dean is buying a boat,” Charles said.
“He mentioned that,” I said.
“With what?” Charles asked.
I did not answer him.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I walked back inside and stood in the quiet of the formal dining room, where the table was already set for six.
I pulled the phone out and swiped the screen.
The text was from the delivery coordinator.
“The black King Ranch is parked in the side drive,” the message read. “Dealer tags are secured. Keys are in the delivery box on the front porch as requested.”
I deleted the message and slipped the phone back into my pocket.
“Are you hiding from the kitchen, Savannah?”
Aunt Brenda stood in the doorway, her breathy voice cutting through the quiet of the room.
She was wearing a pink cardigan that smelled strongly of lavender soap.
“Just checking the time,” I said.
“Your mother says you are very busy at the firm lately,” Brenda said, stepping closer to the table. “Though she could not quite remember the name of your new project.”
“We are restructuring our regional supply logistics,” I said.
Brenda covered her mouth with her linen napkin as she let out a high, breathy laugh.
“It sounds terribly dry,” she said. “No wonder you do not talk about it.”
“It keeps me occupied,” I said.
She reached out and adjusted one of the water glasses, moving it less than an inch to the left.
“Well, it is a blessing that Dean is doing so well,” Brenda said. “Your mother was saying he might even help his father with the roof repairs this spring.”
“That would be helpful,” I said.
The sound of tires crunching on the gravel turnaround outside cut through the house.
Two bright beams of light swept across the dining room window, illuminating the white lace curtains.
I turned toward the front door as the first guests arrived in the driveway.
Aunt Brenda and Uncle Charles came through the front door first, carrying a strawberry pie from the bakery on Eighth Avenue. Dean immediately started talking over Brenda, his hand deep in his pocket, jingling three quarters and a dime against his truck keys.
“We pulled fifty-four percent of the regional market share this quarter,” Dean said, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe of the dining room. “The Dallas office did not even touch our numbers.”
“That is very nice, Dean,” Martha said, smoothing her apron over her emerald silk blouse.
She adjusted her gold necklace, her fingers hovering near the collar for a second before she turned back to the kitchen.
Frank was already sitting at the head of the dark oak dining table, scraping a speck of dried polish off his belt buckle with his thumbnail. He did not look up when Charles walked in, but he pointed a blunt finger toward the kitchen counter where the clean glasses were stacked.
“Get yourself a beer, Charles,” Frank said. “Savannah bought some of that expensive imports stuff that tastes like grass.”
“Appreciate it, Frank,” Charles said, his slow drawl matching the hum of the refrigerator.
We sat down at seven. The ribeye steaks were thick and charred, filling the room with the heavy smell of seared fat and salt. Martha had laid out the fine china, the ones with the silver rim that only came out for funerals and decade birthdays.
“The price of steel is up four percent,” Frank said, cutting a piece of meat with a heavy hand. “We had to re-bid the entire warehouse project in Keller.”
“The Keller project is small change compared to what we are doing in Austin,” Dean said.
He leaned forward, his fork pointed at Charles.
“I am looking at a six-figure baseline for next year,” Dean said. “That is conservative.”
I looked down at my wrist. It was exactly ten minutes past seven. I did not mention that his firm had just laid off twelve percent of their field staff, or that his six-figure baseline was mathematically impossible based on their public SEC filings.
“Pass the salt, Savannah,” Dean said.
I handed the heavy crystal shaker to him without touching his fingers.
“Your sister has a big title now,” Martha said, setting a bowl of green beans on the trivet. “She is in procurement.”
“Procurement is just a fancy word for shopping with someone else’s checkbook,” Frank said, not looking up from his plate.
Brenda covered her mouth with her napkin as she laughed, her eyes darting between Frank and me to see if the blow had landed.
“It is about managing vendor risk,” I said.
“Sure it is, honey,” Frank said.
He chewed his steak, his eyes fixed on the empty space at the end of the table where the carving set lay.
By half past seven, the plates were mostly empty, leaving only the white grease congealing on the stoneware. I reached into my leather purse on the floor and pulled out the small black box with the red silk bow.
I slid it across the polished oak table until it stopped three inches from Frank’s water glass.
“Happy sixtieth birthday, Dad,” I said.
The room went quiet, the only sound the low rattle of the air conditioning unit in the hallway.
Frank looked at the box, then at Martha, then back at the box. He did not touch it for five seconds.
“What is this?” Frank asked.