Chapter 2 - The Cold Dinner Table
By eight o'clock, the sun had dropped behind the dense pine canopy, casting long, bruised shadows across the surface of Lake Torch.
The dining table inside the great room was set for six people, but only four chairs were occupied.
Ben sat with his cap pulled low over his eyes, methodically shredding a paper napkin into tiny, uniform strips.
Beside him, Lily had refused to take off her denim jacket, her posture as rigid as a marble column, her dinner fork resting untouched beside a platter of cold roast beef.
Daniel sat at the head of the table in his usual place, but his posture was all wrong; his shoulders were hunched, and his eyes kept darting to the empty chair at the opposite end.
That was my chair, carved from local black walnut, where I had presided over twenty-seven summers of birthday toasts, college send-offs, and late-night card games.
Rachel sat to his right, wearing an ivory linen sundress that looked absurdly formal against the rustic hemlock walls.
"The beef is really very good, Daniel," Rachel ventured into the suffocating quiet, her voice sounding thin and artificial.
"Did your butcher in the city prepare the rub?"
Neither Ben nor Lily looked at her; the only response was the steady, rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.
Daniel cleared his throat, trying to summon that effortless, booming authority that usually cowed his junior partners in boardrooms.
"Lily, pass the mustard to Rachel, please," Daniel commanded, his voice tight.
Lily didn't move an inch.
She lifted her eyes, staring straight into her father’s face with a cold, unblinking disgust that made Daniel flinch.
"Why didn't you tell Mom she was coming, Dad?" Lily asked, her voice calm, clear, and utterly devoid of fear.
Rachel’s fork scraped against her porcelain plate with a screech that made the hair on the back of Daniel’s neck stand up.
"Lily, this is an adult conversation that doesn't concern your weekend," Daniel warned, his hand gripping the stem of his wine glass.
"It concerns my mother," Ben interrupted, his deep voice slicing through his father's bluster.
"Mom spent three days baking the peach pies you packed in the cooler, Dad. She ordered the propane tanks for the dock heaters on Tuesday."
Ben stood up from the table, tossing his napkin onto his plate.
"She did all of that thinking this was our family weekend, while you were planning to parade your mistress through her bedroom."
"Ben, sit back down!" Daniel roared, standing up so abruptly his chair screeched against the floorboards.
"I'm going to the boat dock," Ben said, walking toward the screen door without glancing back.
Lily pushed her chair back, picked up her car keys from the sideboard, and looked at Rachel with pure, unvarnished pity.
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"You think you won something tonight, don't you?" Lily whispered to Rachel.
"Look at him. He hasn't looked you in the eyes once since we arrived. You're just a weapon he tried to use against my mother, and she didn't even bother to show up to the fight."
