Chapter 3 - The Ghost at the Feast
I didn't open the video until the kids had finished their second helping of apple tart and were curled up on the leather sofa in the catering office, watching a Christmas cartoon on Nadia’s laptop.
Pete stood by the three-compartment sink, scrubbing the roasting pan with a wire brush, the hot water sending clouds of steam into the high ceiling. Nadia leaned against the prep table, holding a mug of black coffee, watching me as I tapped the play button on my screen.
The video had been taken from the corner of Susette’s dining room, likely recorded by Garrett while pretending to check an email.
The atmosphere was suffocating.
The remaining guests—Aunt Clara, her husband Greg, and their two sons—sat in absolute silence, staring down at their half-empty plates. The centerpiece of shaved cedar and imported white orchids looked grotesque amidst the tension. Susette sat at the head of the table, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen from crying, her fork stabbing aggressively at a single baby carrot.
"Garrett, put that phone away," my mother’s voice came from off-camera, shrill and frayed. "We are trying to have a nice evening."
"Nobody is having a nice evening, Mom," Garrett's voice muttered from behind the lens, tight and bitter. "Pete took half the damn roast, Wes is gone, and the boys are sitting here looking like they're at a funeral."
"If Wesley hadn't thrown a tantrum over seating—" Susette began, her voice rising to that sharp, nasal pitch that signaled an incoming explosion.
Then Aunt Clara spoke up. Aunt Clara was Evelyn’s younger sister, a quiet woman who spent her life teaching fourth grade in a public school district two towns over. She laid her silver fork down on her plate with a distinct, ringing chime.
"Susette," Clara said, her voice terrifyingly calm. "Why wasn't Caleb's name on a card?"
"I told you, Clara, the layout was balanced for fourteen," Susette snapped, dabbing her nose with a monogrammed handkerchief. "The dining room cannot accommodate eighteen without looking like a school cafeteria. I had a vision for this dinner."
"He is seven years old," Clara replied, not raising her voice an inch. "You set places for my boys. You set a place for yourself. But you left your brother-in-law’s children without a chair and told a little boy he didn't belong here."
"I meant he belonged in the den!" Susette screeched, her composure completely shattering. "You are twisting my words! You are all ganging up on me in my own house! After I spent four thousand dollars on food, wine, and decor! Do you know how hard I worked to make this family look respectable?"
"Look respectable to whom, Susette?" Clara asked. She stood up, folding her napkin and placing it neatly beside her plate. "Greg. Get the coats. We're leaving."
"Clara, please!" my mother cried out, her voice breaking into a sob. "Don't you start too! It's Christmas! Families stay together on Christmas!"
"Families treat each other with basic human decency on Christmas, Evelyn," Clara said firmly. "You should have spoken up the moment she humiliated your grandson. The fact that you sat there and protected the centerpiece instead of Caleb is something you need to think about long and hard."
The video cut off abruptly with the sound of chairs scraping back and Susette beginning to wail hysterically.
I lowered the phone. Nadia let out a slow, shuddering breath.
"Good for Clara," Pete said from across the kitchen, wiping his wet hands on a blue huck towel. He walked over, leaned against the counter, and shook his head. "Garrett sent you that because he wants you to feel guilty. He wants you to think you pulled the pin on the grenade."
"I didn't pull the pin," I said, staring at the blank screen of my phone.
"Damn right you didn't," Pete said. "Susette’s been pulling the pin for six years. You just stopped throwing yourself on it to save everybody else's skin."
My phone rang again. This time it was Garrett himself.
I looked at Nadia. She gave me a slight, resolute nod.
I swiped the green icon and put the call on speaker.
"Wes?" Garrett’s voice was ragged, breathing hard as if he had been pacing the driveway in the cold.
"I'm here, Garrett."
"Where the hell did Pete go?" Garrett demanded, skipping any pretense of a holiday greeting. "Did he go to your place? Mom is completely inconsolable. Clara just packed up Greg and the kids and drove off. Susette is upstairs having a full-blown panic attack. The whole house is in shambles, Wes. Over a damn seating arrangement!"
"It wasn't over a seating arrangement, Garrett," I said, my voice steady, stripped of all anger. "It was over your wife telling my son he didn't belong."
"She didn't mean it like that and you know it!" Garrett yelled, his voice cracking with the strain of a man trying to defend an indefensible wall. "She was overwhelmed! She planned this for three months! You know how she gets when things aren't perfect! Why couldn't you just laugh it off, sit the kids in the den for an hour, and talk to me about it tomorrow? Why did you have to blow up the entire family?"
"Why couldn't you tell your wife to treat your nephew like a human being?" I shot back, the heat finally rising in my chest. "Answer me that, Garrett. For six years, I have eaten in the hallway. I have eaten on folding chairs. I have watched Nadia sit in the cold sunroom while your wife posted pictures on Instagram of her 'perfect family feast.' I took it because Mom begged me to keep the peace. But the second Susette turned that cruelty onto my son, the peace was over."
"She’s my wife, Wesley!"
"And Caleb is my son," I answered coldly. "And until you understand the difference between keeping the peace and enabling abuse, we don't have anything left to talk about."
"If you don't come back tonight and clear the air with Mom," Garrett warned, his voice dropping into a desperate, threatening register, "this family is never going to recover from this. You're cutting yourself off, Wes. Mom will never forgive you."
"Mom sat at that table and watched Caleb cry," I said. "Tell her if she wants to see her grandchildren, she knows where our front door is. But she better come alone, and she better come ready to apologize to Caleb."
I ended the call before he could shout back.
The kitchen fell silent again, save for the hum of the refrigeration units and the faint sound of the cartoon coming from the back office.
Pete reached out and clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder. "You did good, kid. The hardest thing a man ever has to do is draw a line through his own bloodline."
"I don't think Garrett will ever forgive me for this," I whispered, the weight of the day finally settling into my bones.
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"Garrett isn't mad at you, Wes," Pete said softly, looking toward the window where the snow was falling heavier now, blanketing the dark asphalt. "Garrett is mad at himself because deep down, he knows he was a coward tonight. And a coward will hate you for being brave every single time."
***
