Family Dinner

Content warning: transphobic comments.

It’s not the most rejuvenating sliver of peace I’m left with, but it’s as good as I’ll get and I need to savour it. Cars whizz by out the window sliced by the blinds. Around me the fridge hums and the gas oven lets off a low whine and the air fryer blasts. It would be wrong to call the kitchen its own space; it’s more an alcove scraped into the wall of the living room with only three steps possible in any direction. With four of us in here peeling potatoes and chopping onions and prepping a whole chicken, that’s a nightmare. When it’s just me on my lonesome it’s not great either, but it’s fine. Just okay.

The roast is only a few minutes out so the stress is nearly over, besides. All before my brother has arrived. That’s a relief. He likes to swagger and burp up beer and crowd the space. When I was his brother I had more tolerance for that. I even joined in. As his sister, though, it makes me uncomfortable in a way I struggle to articulate.

I take the opportunity to tug out the air fryer drawer and check the potatoes. I use a long two-pronged fork to wiggle them around. They’re moist with Aldi’s own Nordpak and speckled in paprika, garlic powder, and chopped parsley. The scent glides pleasantly up my nose. My pride and joy. Simple ingredients in balance. Dad has tried adding more salt multiple times and I’ve had to shoo him away. Over my dead body is anyone going to mess with these.

Something rattles behind me. I turn around. “Nana!”

Her hands quake as she prizes them from the oven mittens. She’s set the oven tray with the chicken on the side without any barrier to protect the countertop. I shove the air fryer drawer back in and rush over. I take the mittens from her. They have a hole near the fingers, so it’s a miracle she wasn’t burned. I lift the tray and place it on the wooden cutting board, which is still decorated with crumbs of broccoli head even though dad said he’d clean it. I take the long fork I used for the potatoes and a carving knife and I slice some of it, teasing open the gap.

“There’s still pink!” I turn to her with a smile. “I’m going to put it back in, okay?”

“Ohhh,” she says with a wobble of her jowls. 

I tell her to stand back. I open the oven door and slide the chicken back on the top layer, a bed of vegetables in bubbling salty oil beneath it. This chicken will not be done at the same time as everything else. Oh well. I’m losing the capacity to care. I shut the door again and thread the oven mittens through the handle, leaving them to rest.

Nana reaches for the mittens. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Ohhh,” she says, pulling at them but not freeing them from the handle. 

I turn from her and with some relief see my mum striding through the living room towards us. She looks distracted by ten other things I can’t see, twirling one of her frizzy curtains around her forefinger. She asks if everything is okay.

“Nana was just trying to make us eat raw chicken,” I say.

Nana turns to my mum with a frown. When she sees that mum is smiling, she pushes for a smile too. 

“Let’s get you set down, hey?” Mum guides her to one of the couches, where she sits. Then mum strides back over to me and something flashes in her eyes. “The gravy!” 

“The gravy!” I say in solidarity. We’d forgotten.

She pulls out our last onion from the cupboard and turns to the cutting board, seeing its dirty. I say I got it and I squeeze the sponge under running water until all the soap is out before I wipe the board down. She thanks me and gets as far as chopping off the ends before dad yells from the dining room, “Tiz! Do you know where the wine glasses are?”

She looks at me. I nod. She nods back and moves past me towards him. She pauses to kneel and look in at the vegetables. “Remember to check on them as well.” She leaves. 

“Yeah.” The peace is slipping away, as I should feel prepared for, but I don’t. I glance over at nana who is watching the television as though it’s not a black screen. I consider going to turn it on but there’s no time.

I flick the kettle on in preparation for the stock. I slice the onion in half, make quick work of its skin which I cram in on top of the full food bin, and chop it. I place a small saucepan on the hob and drizzle in some oil. I ignite the flame. The smell of gas mixes poorly with the smell of everything else. I transfer onion to saucepan and use a wooden spoon to stir. Then I prod the vegetables in the oven with a regular fork. 

They’re in the worst possible state. Not so soft they’re done and can be taken out. Not so hard I don’t have to think of them for a bit. I need to keep them in mind.

I shut the oven and continue stirring. Keys rattle at the front door and it opens. My chest constricts. 

“Hey, hey, hey!” says Jeffrey like he’s his own hype man. My brother is still wearing his sunglasses when he enters the living room, just so he can knock them down his nose to greet me. “How’s the fresh grrradddduaaatttee?”

Jeffrey never went to university. It’s always been a point of contention that I managed it, even though both our parents have always made a point of saying they wouldn’t care either way. 

I keep stirring the onions and try to mimic his energy while keeping my voice feminized. “How’s the IT guy? They still letting you have enrichment time outside the cupboard?”

“I got laid off actually.” He walks his fingers up the doorframe as grandad squeezes in past him, still holding his car keys. He picked Jeffrey up from the train station. 

“What? When?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Month ago.”

“Why didn’t you text?”

“It didn’t seem important.” 

“Important? Have you found another one?”

“What? So students are allowed to take their time kipping in their old room but a guy can’t get laid off for a month?”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I was just asking because I’m concerned about you.”

He frowns. “You’re beginning to sound like mother.” 

“Well, I’m sure she’ll be concerned too.” Something in my head clicks and I think of the vegetables. “Hey, would you mind checking the–”

“NAAANNNAAA!” he says. He spreads his arms like wings and prances over to her. “How’s my girl?”

Nana smiles up at him even while it seems like she’s not quite sure who he is. He takes his sunglasses off and chucks them on the couch for someone to sit on later.

The onions are turning brown.

I kneel again and check on the vegetables. Close but not quite. Damnit. 

I pour the hot water from the kettle into a big glass bowl and unfurl two stock cubes, which I mix in. I pour this into the saucepan while Jeffrey whispers nana a story. She laughs but seems confused more than anything.

Grandad approaches. I steady my breath as he halfway closes the exit to the kitchen. He’s still wearing his flatcap and coat but at least he’s returned his car keys to their hook by the front door. “Drivers along this street is abysmal,” he says.

“I know,” I say as a car hurtles past.

“I am going to ring the council telling them to lower the speed limit, or at least enforce the one we have.”

“You should!” I say absently as I go rooting through the cupboards for the red wine for the gravy.

He mumbles to himself and shuffles back towards the TV. He switches it on and turns the volume up so David Attenborough is yelling about birds for the whole house to hear. Lovely.

I perk up my eyebrows. Mum is striding my way again. 

“Mum!” Jeffrey gets up and hugs her and she hugs him back. When they pull apart she tugs at his hair and says it needs cutting. He says she always says that.

“Do you know where the wine is?” I ask, feeling as if I’m interrupting.

“Ah,” she says. “Dad poured us all glasses of the only wine we have; he didn’t grab us another.”

“Wineless gravy?” 

“It’ll have to be.” 

“Don’t work yourself up, Tiz,” my brother says to her. “Your family is here. We can handle it all.” 

I frown at him. Why would he use her nickname there? Her real name is Theresa but ‘Tiz’ comes from how everyone used to say she always worked herself up into a tizzy. And he’s telling her to relax after calling her that? Thinking about it, it isn’t the worst thing he’s said to her. He used to–

My thoughts are interrupted by a glass shattering in the dining room. “Sorry!” dad calls. “Sorry, shit, sorry. Nobody come in here.”

“I’ll clean it!” mum calls back. 

Dad says he can sweep and hoover but mum brings up the fact that the last time he’d broken a mug and ‘cleaned’ up after himself a shard jabbed into her foot so deeply and bloodily that they went to A&E. He doesn’t have a response to that. Jeffrey doesn’t offer to help, instead wandering over to grandad to start a conversation grandad doesn’t seem all that interested in. 

I stir the gravy and turn the heat down to a low simmer. I check on the vegetables. They’re…I’m just checking all of them…they’re ready! 

I grab the oven mittens, being mindful of the hole so I won’t burn myself, and slide out the vegetable tray. I place it on the cutting board which this time I haven’t cleaned, which is on me, but things are happening too fast and now there’s a basketball game on screen and a crowd is mumbling incoherently and an American man is shouting about some long-running rivalry and when did the channel change and why was this channel picked because no one in this house likes basketball or has any like for televised sports in general.

Nana’s next to me and she’s opened the oven. She doesn’t have the mittens. She’s reaching for the chicken tray.

I step over and push her hand away. “Nana, why don’t we sit down for now? I can handle it.”

“Pammela!” Grandad stomps over. “Get out the kitchen. It’s not safe for you.”

My heart is racing and I wasn’t even the target of his aggression. He must be exhausted with her decline but she’s the one having to live with it. I hope I have more patience when I’m older but I suppose there’s no way to guarantee that. 

He leads her away, mumbling complaints. Jeffrey shoots a look at me with his eyes wide and lips downturned at the corners, but a look doesn’t help anyone.

There’s no more counter space so to check on the chicken I drag out the shelf the tray is on halfway. I use the knife and long fork to slice a different bit of it. It is nearly entirely white. The roast is nearly done, everything at last coming together.

As I slide the tray back in, I hear Jeffrey come in. Finally, he’s being helpful.

I hear him opening the fridge. Never mind. Scrounging for a beer. 

I hear the fridge shut and a plastic lid pop open. That’s not a can. Now there’s the sound of rustling around in the silverware. I shut the oven and give the gravy another stir. I add some salt and pepper. I’d like to taste it. “Can you pass me a teaspoon, please?”

I hear the air fryer drawer pull open and I finally turn around. 

It takes a second to understand what he’s doing. In one hand is a tub of Rodda’s clotted cream. In his other a spoonful of it is hovering over the potatoes. Some of it drips.

“Hey!” I rush over and yank the spoon out of his hand.

“Come on, I saw this online!” he says. He smells of damp draped in too much body spray. “Trust me.”

“Was what you saw with this particular mix of seasonings? You’ll throw the flavours off.”

He huffs and says, as if as an aside, “What a degree in Food Science does to a motherfucker.” Louder he says, “Fine. Just trying to be helpful.”

It’s my turn to huff. 

“It’s good to know you still fight like a boy.” He doesn’t make eye-contact with me after that and strides out the kitchen. He doesn’t leave me alone, though, because that would be too perfect. Instead he leans on both walls that enclose the kitchen’s exit, forming a forth wall with his gangly arms and legs. I take deep breaths. I won’t let him get to me.

I leave the clotted cream on the side and check on the chicken again because it’s something to do, only I’m surprised to see that it’s done. I shouldn’t be surprised—I knew it was close. Maybe I thought I’d be trapped in here forever.

I re-equip the mittens and take the tray out. I knee the oven door shut and stand at the barrier between me and the living room. 

“Excuse me, please,” I mumble.

He still doesn’t look at me. He makes chewing noises even though I’m sure there’s no gum in his mouth. Eventually he lets me pass. I move towards the coffee table beside nana, where I’d previously lain a protective mat in preparation. Except it’s been moved.

I ask grandad where it is. I have to ask three times because of the TV.

“Sorry, I thought it was mess.” He pushes towards a stand, falls back in the couch, and heaves up again. He shuffles to a bookshelf where he wedged the mat in haphazardly. I shake my leg, my arms are getting tired, and being this close to the TV is bringing on a headache. Or maybe it’s not the TV. When’s the last time I drank water? 

Grandad tugs the mat from between two Stephen Kings and shuffles in my direction.

My eyes flick to movement in the kitchen. My brother whacks a dollop of clotted cream in with the potatoes. 

“Come ON!” I say and when I turn towards him my finger slips through the hole in the mittens and touches scalding metal. I grunt and drop the tray. It falls on nana’s arm before tipping over the couch’s edge and clattering upside-down on the floor. The chicken escapes on a trail of grease.

There’s a pause. Then the basketball crowd start yelling because someone scored and nana howls like I’ve never heard a person howl. 

Everyone rushes in, including mum and dad and my brother.

“What happened?” dad says as grandad says, “What have you done?” and my brother says, “Oop.” My mother doesn’t say anything and rushes upstairs. 

“I’m sorry, I–” I start, but I can’t think through the howling and the American announcer.

“What happened?” my dad repeats. 

“Esme dropped a hot tray on Pam’s arm,” he says. 

“Yes, I did,” I finally manage. The oven mittens still smother my sweating hands. The tip of my finger that touched hot metal pulses with a stinging throb.

Mum slams down the stairs and enters with some burn cream and a snap-to-activate ice pack. She kneels beside nana and applies the cream generously to where her skin has turned lobster.

“Did you hear that?” dad says to mum. “Esme dropped it on nana. You shouldn’t have even been standing so close to her.”

It’s too much. I rip off the gloves and move to the front door of the house. I open it and step out into the driveway. Gravel crunches under my bare foot but I don’t feel it. I know the air should be fresher, less stuffy, out here but I can’t seem to breathe it. Maybe I’m not far enough away. I move to the pavement.

“Esme?” My brother actually sounds…concerned? Maybe he’s willing to listen to me. I turn around and my dad is there behind him too, frowning as if afraid.

“What?” I say. 

“Why don’t we come back in the house?” dad says. “I’m sure it was a mistake.”

I begin to sob, but it’s cut short when something hard and cold slams into my side. I’d walked too far; I was standing out in the road.

Next thing I know I’m splayed on concrete and don’t feel my body so well. I didn’t process the impact but I recall it now, tumbling over the top of the car, fingers grasping ineffectually for a grip. My mouth tastes metallic. 

“Hey!” Jeffrey says while staying by the door. “You okay?” 

I manage a distant smile.

“Should call you Tiz Jr., walking into traffic like that.”

My dad, who was paralyzed in shock, now punches him in the face.

My brother stumbles back and gawks. 

My dad approaches as if to do it again, but mum rushing out the door behind him seems to make him stop. Mum reaches me and she’s crying. She holds out her hands to the road as if to pray and a car that would’ve treated me as less that a speed bump halts. 

I look up at her and she looks back and me.

“The gravy might need checking on,” I say. 

She gets out her phone and calls the hospital.