Page 126 - My FlipBook

L IS A J. L A W R E N C E

“This isn’t some dysfunctional-father contest,” Alice said,
but her voice had lost its steel.
Greta rubbed her bare arms, finally feeling the cold.
“Why don’t we try to finish dinner?” Greta said. “We can be
civil for twenty minutes and kill each other after.”
“I might take you up on that,” Alice said. Greta couldn’t
tell if she was joking.
They sat down at the table again and stayed nearly silent

for the next ten minutes. Elgin took this as an invitation to
talk about Alice. Alice in school to become a dental assistant,
Alice’s ex-boyfriend (which earned him a frightening glare),
Alice who had won Ping-Pong trophies, Alice who had been
on the honor roll in junior high school.
When Elgin paused for a breath, Ash looked back and
forth between Alice and Elgin and asked, “So…are you ADVANCE READING COPY

adopted?”
Greta almost kicked him under the table, except she
was kind of wondering about the age difference herself. She
thought Roger looked old, but Elgin definitely tipped the
scale toward senior citizen.
“No, he’s my biological father,” Alice said in a voice
that told Greta she’d had this conversation a million times.
“He was twenty years older than my mom, and she’s the one
who died first. Consider the irony.”

After dinner, they watched a rerun of Quiz Kings. And
no one talked about jobs or rent or dead mothers. When
Alice grabbed her jacket to leave, she pointed back and forth

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