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“It’s gonna be fine,” I reassured him. “They’ll love you, I’m sure of it.”
He looked over at me. “You mean it?”
I hesitated, but briefly enough for him not to notice. “Of course.”
The truth was that I had no idea how they’d react. They were always ones to put my best interests first, even if I didn’t see eye-to-eye with them. But since Daniel, whom they’d disliked, relationships were not our favorite topic.
“It’s gonna be wonderful!” yelled Sophie in delight, derailing my train of thought.
I forced a grin, despite the uncertainty, and looked back at Sophie. “You bet it is!” Then I turned to Lucas. “Are you ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” he said, and with that, the three of us synchronously stepped out of the car. I took Sophie by the hand and guided her to the front door, while Lucas went to grab some things from the trunk. I told him he didn’t need to go to any trouble to impress them, but he insisted. I knocked on the door, hearing Lucas’s pace quicken to catch up before it opened. He was about twenty steps behind us when my mother opened the door.
“Sweetheart!” she said, pulling Sophie and me into an embrace. Noticing it was just the two of us, she whispered to me, “I see you had a change of—” But then Lucas appeared over the lip of the steps of the front porch, and she immediately fell silent.
“Hello, Mrs. Beckett,” Lucas said, straining to extend a hand from under the bulk of all he was carrying. “Lucas Mendosa, pleasure to meet you.”
She took his hand, cordially. “I hope all these gifts aren’t for us!” she said. Lucas smiled in response, but I could tell from a lifetime of knowing my mother that this was the tone she assumed when she had nothing meaningful or pleasant to say. It was its own form of dismissal, and it sent a chill throughout my body.
“Well, would you look who’s here!” came a voice, my father’s, as he emerged from the dining room and into the hallway. He hugged Sophie and me, giving us both a kiss on the forehead, before registering Lucas’s presence.
“You in there?” he said, jokingly. Lucas’s provisions were piled so high that his face was barely visible out from my father’s height.
Lucas smiled, lowering the pile as much as his arms allowed. “Yes, sir,” he said, extending his left arm awkwardly to shake my father’s. “Lucas. Lucas Mendosa.”
My father conspicuously froze. “Mendosa? As in—"
“Yes,” Lucas said. “ThatMendosa.” He grinned in good spirit, but my father was silent— whether he had misinterpreted Lucas’s response as cocky was not then apparent to me. But then I saw my father return to himself and extend both his arms. “Here, let me help you with some of that,Mr. Mendosa.”Again I couldn’t quite make out my father’s tone, but Lucas seemed pleased enough with it, and so I took Sophie by the hand and quietly guided her into the dining room.
There, I was shocked to find my brother, along with his wife and their son—I hadn’t seen them in almost two years. Suddenly I felt guilty for bringing Lucas. It felt inappropriate, and surely he’d feel left out of the conversation. But then, Lucas was my romantic partner, and already part of the family. They’d get to know him sooner or later, so why not get the formalities out of the way?
“Let’s drop all this off in the kitchen,” my father said to Lucas, before he had the chance to introduce himself. Lucas complied wordlessly, and the two of them disappeared around the corner.
Sophie and I went around the room, greeting and hugging everyone, when Lucas and my father came back into the room, each handling a bottle of wine.
“Let me see that,” my brother said, putting his arm around our father and straining to read the label. His eyebrow raised, and he whistled. “Fancy,” he said. Lucas smiled at him, unsure of the appropriate response.
The night proceeded somewhat uneventfully. As we waited for the roast beef to finish cooking, the eight of us chatted idly, conjuring long-lost memories, and filling one another in on the past several months. Lucas didn’t say much but nodded attentively as each person spoke.
But then the fire alarm went off in the kitchen, filling the house with its screeches. In a hurry, my mother ran to the kitchen, my father following closely behind her. Lucas and Sophie were looking across the table, where my nephew was becoming agitated. Part of his condition involved noise sensitivity, and the alarm sent him into a tantrum. My brother and sister-in-law struggled to soothe him. He cried inconsolably, at one point falling from his chair and refusing to get up.
“I’m sorry, everyone,” he said. “I think we’re gonna have to get this little one to bed.”
We nodded in understanding as he scooped his son into his arms, an apologetic look in his eyes. The three of them made their way to the upstairs guest room, but even through the distance we could hear his sobs.
Now, as my mother returned from the kitchen with a platter of slightly charred roast beef, she set it down in front of the remaining five.
“Dinner is served,” she said, with an affectation meant to cloak disappointment.
From there, the evening proceeded uncomfortably. Aside from Sophie’s occasional “yum” and “thanks, Grandma!” the table was generally silent, and I found myself looking up at the clock on more than one occasion. Minutes passed as if they were hours.
At one point, about half an hour after dinner was served, Lucas attempted to engage my parents in conversation.
“What is it you like to do?” he asked neither of them in particular.
“Nothing worth getting into,” my mother responded tersely. My father only nodded in agreement.
On more than one occasion, I caught my mother shooting sidelong glances at Lucas, an evident disapproval lurking in her eyes. I suspected, from Lucas’s tense body language, that he saw it, too.
