Dad gets the oxtail ravioli in a bone marrow sauce, Mom the linguine with lobster. I get the chicken parm, and then they ask for a Montepulciano or something, and we get wineglasses all around. Except Callie. Obviously. I order Callie a few salads, because Mom’s doing her thing of sort of talking around her, and Dad’s doing his thing where he includes her in the conversation, even though, you know, no language.
The appetizers and the first of Callie’s salads come. Do I take some of Dad’s fried calamari? I do. Does Callie take them off my plate? She does. Does anyone else notice how adorable this is? They do not seem to.
“Listen, sport,” Dad says halfway through dinner. “We have an announcement. There’s a research expedition coming up. In the Galápagos Islands.”
Wait. Are they going to invite me? They could be inviting me! Visions of beachside accommodations, giant turtles—there are giant turtles there, right?—begin to fill my head, then Dad speaks up again.
“There's all kinds of weird stuff going on down there in terms of seismic/meteorological confluences.”
“The amount of activity is ridiculous for that area,” Mom adds. “It makes hardly any sense. We could almost explain it away as some kind of wandering pressure system, but that doesn’t really explain the seismic stuff, and we haven’t seen something like this in years, and I’ve never even seen it up close.”
I start to tune out a bit, because I know for a fact that I’m not going to follow any of this, and they haven’t invited me yet, which means the chances that they will are growing slimmer by the second. No vacation for us, kid sister, I mouth to Callie, who has already finished her salad.
“But anyway, sport,” says Dad, “here’s the thing.”
Wait. Are they going on this trip together?
“We’re going on this trip together,” Mom says.
Because they never go on trips together. Because one of them always stays home with me and Callie. Those are the rules. I mean, Callie isn’t some freak or anything, but she’s special, and she has needs and thrives best in certain conditions, so when these trips happen one of them always stays home with us.
“And we feel totally confident leaving you home with Callie for a few weeks.”
Well.
I pour us all a bit more wine, and they smile at each other and at me, and for some reason I’m feeling a little weird right now. I think about how we’ve watched movies together where the parents go out of town, and almost immediately the kids start running through the house drunk and naked, and then Mom says something like “What kind of idiots would leave their kids alone and expect something like this not to happen?”
Maybe Callie’s the reason they’re so cool with this? Like I wouldn’t dare have a party at our house because doing so would be uncomfortable and scary for my sister? But honestly I kind of think they just haven’t even thought of it. Like maybe they’ve waited my whole life to do something like this together, and now, for the first time, they can, because I’m just barely grown up enough to take care of stuff. They’re talking about something else now, but I’m basically lost in these thoughts, and it takes me a minute to focus back on them.
“Anyway, sport. We just want you to know. And you too, Callie!” Dad says, looking at Callie, then looking at Mom.
“That this is just one of the many reasons why we know we can always count on you, always, no matter what,” Mom finishes.
“For real and for always.”
“Exactly.”
“Thanks, guys,” I say. “And, I was just wondering . . .”
“Yes?” says Dad.
“Well,” I say, finishing my glass of wine, “I was just wondering, since I’m the world’s greatest big sister and all, when am I going to get my trophy, and my certificate, my cash reward . . .”
Mom laughs, and Dad says, “Your certificate’s at the print shop, kid,” and Mom finishes his glass of wine.
ON THE WAY home, Callie naps next to me, though it’s impossible to tell whether or not she’s actually sleeping.
Dad looks back at us in the rearview and asks, “How’s Callie been?”
“She’s been fine,” I tell him.
He looks at me in the mirror and makes his face into the shape of a question, and that question is: Really? And it is real skeptical.
I tell him that since the hospital she’s been fine, if not better than fine. I tell him that if I were worried, I’d let them know. It works okay, I guess. His face unfurls from its question, and we keep driving.
But the more I think about it, it’s weird as hell that they’re going on this trip together. I keep thinking about this even though all I want, just for a minute, is to pretend it isn’t there, so I could just enjoy this happy family feeling a little bit more.
And I’m tired. And maybe I had a little bit more wine than I should have. And then I hear something.
“We just worry is all,” Dad says quietly.