I wish Tana wouldn’t say things like that, and I wish she’d stop whacking her mashed potatoes with her spoon. They’re already smashed into a pancake.
“First of all,” Mom says, “Dad does eat with us sometimes—”
“Yeah right! Like when?”
“Second of all, Dad has to work so we can live in this nice house and eat mashed potatoes.”
Tana’s supposed to smile when Mom says mashed potatoes, and say oh like we always say oh about Dad not being home, but she doesn’t, she says, “He hates us!”
Of course Dad doesn’t hate us! Why would Tana even say that! Polly and I look at Mom, we’re waiting for Mom to say, Of course Dad doesn’t hate us, but Mom’s just looking at Tana looking at her smashed-up mashed potatoes.
I take a bite of chicken. I take another bite but I can’t get anyone else to quit their fighting and eat their chicken.
“I got an A on my spelling test,” I say. I didn’t even have a spelling test! It’s just the first thing I could think of, but no one says that’s great, no one even smiles.
“Tana,” Mom says, “you know Dad loves you.”
“If he loved us so much, he’d be here. He hates us! He hates you!”
Mom says we can talk about this after dinner.
“You’re just saying that because you know it’s true!” Tana yells. Then she’s gone, running upstairs, slamming our bedroom door, then opening it again so she can slam it even harder.
“You know Dad loves you very much,” Mom says, and Polly and I say we do, we know.
“And you too, right?” Polly says.
“Of course,” Mom says. She smiles but it’s more like a sad smile, more like an upside-down frown.
Please don’t let Mom and Dad get divorced, please don’t let Mom and Dad get divorced. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54555657585960.