3: 3
Joanna paused, a flicker of displeasure crossing her face.
"The company keeps me busy all day, and I still have to look after Reg. Who has the spare energy to remember what other people can't eat?"
"Besides, you know what you can't have. Couldn't you have said so ahead of time?"
Right. So now I was "other people."
I didn't feel like saying anything more. I got up and went to the spare room to pack.
Joanna came in just as I was closing the suitcase.
She frowned, disappointed. "Toby, how long are you going to keep this up?"
"You walk out at a time like this, aren't you afraid Reg will think you don't like him? That it'll hurt his feelings?"
I answered flatly. "If anything, my staying here is what makes him uncomfortable."
I stepped around her and left without another word.
As the door shut, Reg's injured voice drifted out from inside. "Joanna, is it me being here that set Toby off? Maybe I should just go."
"Ignore him. He's just the spoiled young master, temper and all, acting like the whole world owes him something. His parents ruined him. Let him go wherever he wants."
By then my parents would already be asleep, and I didn't want them worrying, so I booked a room at a hotel.
The next day, just past noon, I'd barely woken up when Joanna called.
"Tonight's your mother's sixtieth birthday dinner. I'm taking Reg for a follow-up this afternoon, so let's just meet at the restaurant."
Joanna was always like this. Every time we fought over Reg.
The next day she could act as if nothing had happened at all.
She never once dealt with what was actually wrong. It was like skimming foam off a pot instead of turning down the heat.
I was about to say she didn't have to come, but she cut in first.
"Toby, that's enough. It's an elder's birthday. Don't pick a time like this to upset the family."
I thought it over and decided to wait until after Mom's birthday to tell them everything, slowly.
But I never expected that she wouldn't just arrive last. She'd bring Reg along too.
My father asked, taken aback, "Joanna, and this young man is?"
Joanna answered without missing a beat. "He's a very important friend of mine. His family's all passed away, and his health isn't good, so I've been the one taking care of him."
"Today's the anniversary of his parents' deaths. He's been low, and I was afraid he wouldn't eat properly, so I brought him along for a warm meal."
At that, my parents' expressions turned a little awkward.
Joanna had Reg sit in the seat beside her own.
At every family dinner, the arrangement was fixed. My father sat on Mom's left, I sat on her right, and Joanna after me.
Joanna knew this perfectly well. Even so, she let me stand off to the side like an outsider.
The relatives all wore odd, unreadable looks.
Mom glanced at me, her smile thinning, though she kept her composure. "Joanna, wanting to look after a friend is understandable, but that's Toby's seat. Have the server bring another chair for the young man."
It was a family dinner, only relatives invited, and we'd reserved a single large private room.
The relatives' seats had all been settled long ago, and it wouldn't do to ask anyone to move.
The server squeezed in a chair near the door.
Reg started to rise, flustered. "I'm sorry, that was presumptuous of me. Let me move."
He said it, but his eyes had gone red, as if someone were pushing him out.
Joanna pressed a hand over his. "It's fine. Sit and don't worry."
She turned to me, and it sounded like an order. "Toby, Reg only knows me here. If he's not beside me he'll feel unsafe."
"Be reasonable and take the seat by the door tonight. Don't make people think the Harding son has no manners."
The moment she said it, my parents' faces went dark.
The looks they turned on Reg carried weight.
But with guests present, they held it in.
In the end, Mom pressed me down into her own place at the head of the table and sat by the door herself.
I felt sick with guilt.
Today was her birthday dinner, and because of Joanna, she'd been made to look like someone who'd wandered in to mooch a meal.
My father patted my hand and murmured in my ear, "Your mother's holding the room together for you. Steady now."
Sensing the mood, my aunt stepped in to smooth things over. "Oh, we ought to give the birthday girl her gifts first."
Everyone brought out what they'd prepared.
Expensive tonics, fine tea, designer cashmere shawls. Mom took each one, smiling and thanking them.
Soon only Joanna and I were left.
Everyone waited to see what the daughter-in-law would produce.
But she rose with a glass in hand and said to Mom, "Mom, I'm sorry. I spent the day taking Reg to his follow-up and didn't have time to prepare a proper birthday gift."
"I'll make it up to you next time. Let me raise this glass to you instead. Happy birthday."
The words landed, and Mom's expression froze on the spot.
The relatives exchanged glances.
Their mother-in-law's birthday, and neither the son nor the daughter-in-law had so much as brought a gift?
The reproach and mockery in the looks around us all but scorched through me.
But I knew the shame wasn't only mine.
It was my parents' too.
I called Joanna out into the hall and asked her, "The custom jade Buddha pendant I had made for my mother, the two-hundred-thousand-dollar one. Why is it hanging around Reg's neck?"
