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All heads pivot to where Addie is cutting neatly into her chicken but staring into Iris like she’s picturing the other woman under the knife.
“Excuse me?” Iris barks.
“Addie...” Paloma warns softly.
But my Addie has fire in her eyes and a knife in her hands.
“I said, that’s rich coming from you. Your dad took care of you until you married Grayson. Since then, you’ve done nothing but be a miserable cunt—” she ignores the chaos her words cause as she plows on, “—my mom, on the other hand, has built a very successful business on her own. I’m not one to put another woman down, but if you ever talk to her with anything but the utmost respect going forward, I will bitch slap you so hard—”
“Adeline!” Paloma gasps.
“How dare you!” Iris screams at the same time.
“So fucking hard,” Addie snarls, pitching her voice higher, knife point straight and steady aimed in Iris’s ruddy face, “I will break your jaw. I don’t give a shit who you think you are, I will rip that stick out of your ass and beat—”
“Adeline!”
A deafening silence crashes over the table as Dad returns with a bottle of hot sauce in hand.
His dark eyes are fixed on Addie who has gone very still in her seat. The joints in my body tenses, coils in preparation to jump in if he thinks for a second I’ll let him yell at her.
“Oz...” Paloma begins only to get silenced by the hand Dad raises.
“What is going on? Addie only!” he snaps when Iris breaks in. He slams the bottle down on the table and fixes everyone with a sharp glare. “Addie?”
Addie is breathing hard, but her tone is steady when she answers, “I called your sister a cunt and I threatened to bitch slap her.”
Despite the situation, I have to resist the urge to chuckle. Dayton and Clio were having no luck at all when they snicker loudly.
“Why?” Dad ignores the teenagers and focuses entirely on Addie.
Addie grinds her jaw but doesn’t back down. “Because, although I love my mom with my whole soul, she has a giant flaw. She loves you. That’s not the flaw. Loving you is her whole world because you are her everything. She would walk through red, hot coals for you, and I love that. I love how happy she is with you. But because she would do anything for you, she has endured unimaginable abuse at the hands of that...” she stabs her knife point in Iris’s direction, “that crusty discharge for ten years. She has been torn apart, belittled, and disrespected, but she has smiled through all of it because she doesn’t want to upsetyou or cause a rift between you and the cunt monster. But not today, Satan. I’m not doing it. Mom has been excited for this party for a year and I’m not going to let a used sanitary napkin humiliate her. Now, I am sorry that you’re related to that, and I’m sorry, Grams,” she turns to my grams who has no idea what’s going on, “for saying this stuff in front of you. You know I love you, but I truly believe deep in my heart that your baby was switched at the hospital, and you were saddled with Rosemary’s demon.”
“Adeline,” Paloma groans, covering her eyes.
But Addie’s looking at my dad again, her every line rigid with defiance. “I’m not letting her talk to Mom like trash anymore. I’m sorry, Oz, if that hurts your feelings, but Mom’s been hurting for ten years.”
It’s unclear how long the silence stretched, broken only by Clio and Dayton practically under the table trying to smother their howls. Iris looks on the verge of exploding, and everyone else is doing their best not to make eye contact with anyone else.
The only people who seem genuinely confused are Michael and Brooke.
I’m just fucking proud. Not at all surprised by Addie’s unique handle on the situation. We’ve both gone years biting our tongues because Paloma begged us to keep the peace. She reminded us it was only a couple of hours, and it would upset Dad — her main and only worry no matter how disgusting Iris’s behavior was towards her.
“How dare you with your gutter tongue. Is this how you raised your daughter, Paloma? To talk with such embarrassing language to her elders?”
Paloma’s beautiful face is splotchy with color, a mixture of embarrassment and panic as she tries to smooth the other woman’s vulture feathers.
“Iris, I am so—”
“Don’t.” The ferocity of that single command startles even me, but I push on. “Do not apologize to her. She doesn’t deserve it and I won’t let you. She should be apologizing to you.”
“Rhys?” Iris gasps, garish mouth flapping. “My own flesh and blood turned against me?”
“This here is uncalled for behavior,” Grayson barks, weaseling his way into the conversation. “To treat the people you love so shamefully.”
“Settle down,Colonel Mustard. No one here loves you. Not even your wife,” Addie mutters under her breath.
“Quiet!” Dad snaps.
