“Um.” He froze in mid-reach for the ribs and blinked several times. “I do, mom. You’re right.” He glanced around. “Was that a point of conversation? If I played basketball or not?”
Cassandra plastered another bright smile on. She took the wine from Amelia, who had filled her third glass. “My boyfriend is their captain. Peter Glasburg. You’ve met Peter, right, Malinda? He’s their forward.”
Becky groaned next to me. Her hands switched from her lap, to her plate, to her utensils, and back to her lap. She hadn’t had a bite of food from her plate.
“He’s the one who dribbles the basketball down the court, right?” Malinda made a point to flutter her eyelashes across the table. “I haven’t been watching my son play his favorite sport since he was in third grade for nothing.”
Mark grunted and walloped a spoonful of mashed potatoes on his plate. “My mom was my first coach. She played in college.” He grimaced. “If you want your asses handed to you, play horse against her. She always wins.”
Cassandra’s laugh sounded strangled. “You don’t say.”
Amelia blinked and beamed. “I’d love to learn basketball, Malinda. You could coach me.”
The older woman’s smile slipped, and she rested back in her seat. “Oh, dear. Those days are long gone for me now. I wouldn’t know how to even spell horse anymore.”
“You beat me last weeken—” Mark started to say.
“Try some gravy with those, son.” Malinda stuffed a spoonful in his mouth, and he jerked back, sputtering from the onslaught. She sat back with a contented smile and raised her eyebrows across the table. “You were saying, dear?”
Amelia looked from son to mother. “Nothing.” She folded her hands over her lap and sat back as well.
Malinda looked like the cat that swallowed the canary and got away with it. She glowed for a moment before she looked to me. “Sam, honey, tell me you’d like more than that salad? David tells me you go on long runs.”
“All the time.” Becky surged forward. Her eagerness couldn’t be contained. “She can run for hours at a time. I keep telling her to go out for cross country, but she doesn’t.”
Aware of all the attention, I muttered, “I don’t do it for sport. It’s my time away.”
“Well, of course. I know I wouldn’t even imagine trying to compete against Mason and Logan in sports. Those two are natural talents.” Cassandra leaned back and regarded me with a smug smile.
I tilted my head to the side and asked, “Don’t you run cross country?”
She blinked. “Yeah. Why?”
Malinda placed a hand on my arm and gushed out, “Oh, you must try out for the team—”
“It was in the fall. We’re done already.” Cassandra’s tone had chilled.
Malinda frowned a second and then smiled. Two dimples showed. “How about for track? Do you run for track, Cassandra?”
She seemed frozen in place. “I run the two mile.”
My arm was patted. “There you go, honey. Run the two mile. I’m sure it’s nothing for you. You could smoke anyone.”
“Mom.” Mark frowned. “You’re a track fan now? I’m not running track. I don’t care how much you love me. I don’t love you that much.”
She laughed, a bit strained. “Not for you, honey. For Sam. She’s the runner here. I think she should show something for it.”
I grinned at her words. “That’s what Garrett said. He asked what the point of running so much if I wasn’t training for a marathon.” I laughed at the memory. He’d been so brash.
She quieted and I felt David’s silence beside me.
I turned, helpless, “Not that I care what he said, but…”
David tried to give me a reassuring smile.
I floundered anyway. “I’m sorry, dad.”
He shook his head. “No. No, honey. Don’t ever apologize for thinking of a memory, certainly not when it comes to him.”
I opened my mouth. No sound came out. So I closed it and looked away. Then Adam jumped in. He asked Malinda questions about her college years with basketball. She seemed eager to respond, and an hour slipped by. As it drew to a close, I sighed in relief. Becky hadn’t done anything for me to worry about. I hadn’t done anything for me to worry about. The only two who were sloshed by the end of dinner were Cassandra and Amelia. No one seemed to care.
Everything ended in polite farewells.
I looked up once and wondered if I’d get a one-on-one time with David, but he gave us all a goodnight grin with his hand curved around Malinda’s waist and I knew it wasn’t so. He’d go to bed with her beside him that night, someone who wasn’t my mother.
And then when the door closed on us, I was jerked back to reality. It was cold. I shivered and Cassandra and Amelia seemed too jovial for my stomach to handle.
“Let’s go party!” Amelia laughed as she tipped her head backwards.
Mark frowned at her, but he made no move to hold her in place. That seemed to be Cassandra’s job as she smiled at Adam. “I heard there’s a public party tonight. Wanna go?”
“I…uh…” He looked to me.
Everyone looked to me.
Becky grasped my hand.