Tonight a dinner party gathers at the quiet house—family only. The diners enter one by one, sweeping the cold air into the house as the porch door swings into the kitchen. The old man’s wife greets each guest at the door with a small smile; it doesn’t reach her blanched, tired eyes.

“He had a bad day today,” she says.
“It will be better tomorrow,” is the automatic reply. The guest who spoke exchanges a look with another, but nothing more is said.
The guests place covered dishes of various sizes on the stove and in the refrigerator as coats are thrown onto the backs of wooden chairs. Usually the stove is a fluster of activity long before the guests arrive, wooden spoons testing the consistency of mashed sweet potatoes or sifting through the creamy broth of a cheddar soup. Now a lone pot of pasta bubbles silently until the arriving dishes can accompany it.
“This just needs to be warmed in the oven for half an hour and then we’re good to go,” one diner explains as he stirs the pasta once before preheating the oven.

Another guest peers over his shoulder. “My vegetables need to be at 400 for forty-five minutes. Why don’t they go in first, then we’ll turn it down for you?” She stirs the pot again.
The first diner cleans his glasses of the fog from the boiling pasta. “Why don’t you just do yours in the microwave?” He glances at a young girl standing nearby and lowers his voice. “You know Pop won’t stay up late. We need to get dinner out as fast as possible.”
The stove does not dislike this new way; the new set-up has its benefits. It’s just different.
“Where is he?” one of the other diners asks, overhearing the whispers.
“Sleeping. I’d leave him alone for now,” says the wife. She straightens a cluster of napkins and smoothes the tablecloth although no one has touched them.
Greetings are exchanged, eggnog is distributed, and handfuls of chips find their way to plates. Some guests remain in the kitchen to organize dinner. Others meander into adjacent rooms to find a seat and a good conversation. Questions of “How’s work?” and “Seen any good shows lately?” don’t reach the soundless living room. It is there where he naps.
As delicious smells of the onion-topped casserole and rosemary-spiced vegetables drift from the stove, the talk of the guests begins to stray toward normalcy.
“Did you catch that game the other night? It was amazing!”
“What did you think of that news segment on the war yesterday?”
“And then, when I least expected it, my feet flew out from under me and I slid all the way down the hill!”
The soft laughter of the guests slowly winds through the living room doorway. Within a few minutes, he has lifted himself with shaking arms and shuffled into another room. Most of the guests are gathering in the kitchen, but he isn’t ready for them yet. It is always better to let them find him instead of the other way around. For once his wife did not overhear his movement. It will give him more time alone. As long as she doesn’t know he’s awake, she won’t be bothered by it.
The guests fill their plates with warm parsnips and carrots, roasted turkey, sweet potato casserole, Alfredo pasta, and almond ginger biscuits, taking care to sample everything. They double-check to make sure each plate is covered with as much food as possible——any significant amount of space warrants questions such as “Why aren’t you eating? Is something wrong?”——a response better left tacit——or the even worse concession of “I’m sorry the spread’s so awful. We tried, but I guess things aren’t the same.”
One guest forgets to ladle herself some of the pasta. “You’re probably right not to try that. With him, I guess I just don’t have time to make it the way I used to. It doesn’t even really fit with the rest of the meal,” the wife sighs as soon as the guest passes by the pot.
“Oh, not at all! I’m just saving room for seconds—I’ll try it the next time around!” the diner chirps when she sees her father’s unblinking eyes narrowed at her.
“I’m just so used to fixing pills these days I suppose that’s all I know how to make properly anymore,” the wife continues. She stops to stir the pasta. “Look at this, the sauce is too thin.”
“It’s fine—great! Maybe I’ll try some now after all so it doesn’t get cold.”
The wife shakes her head at the sauce. “Hope it’s cheesy enough for you. I didn’t get to run to the store so I had to use less.”
Soon enough his wife and some of the guests stroll into the other rooms, looking for places to sit and eat while the food is warm. Imagine their surprise when they find him sitting at the dining table, staring blankly back at them.
“He’s awake!” they cry to the others in the kitchen.
“I’ll get you some food, okay?” says one.
“How are you feeling today, Pop?”
“Do you need anything?”
“I heard you had a bad day.”
“I’m fine,” is his reply.
The guests surround the dining table with chairs. Chatter resumes for the most part, but only at the far end of the table. The diners closest to him chew quietly—it is too still for small talk. His wife sets a plate in front of him.
“Let me cut this for you,” she says, her hand already on the knife.
“Here, Pop, try some of this,” a diner says, holding a spoonful of potatoes a few inches from his mouth.
“Do you need some water? I’ll go get you a glass.”
“I can do it,” is his reply.
“You just eat,” his wife says, her mouth a thin line.
The nearest diners seem to stare at him from the corners of their eyes as he eats. His wife hasn’t touched her food since he received his plate. She watches him the most. He fashions a rhythm: a forkful of turkey, a forkful of vegetables, a spoonful of potato casserole, a bite of ginger biscuit, a sip of water.
“He has been so frustrating lately,” his wife says to one of the diners. She guides her fork to make a fence of parsnips between her potatoes and turkey, but her eyes monitor his plate.
“How bad has it been?”
“Everything he does…”
This conversation continues for the next few minutes. He hears what everyone is saying about him, but he is powerless to stop it or even offer his explanation. Whether he is in the room or not, they will just keep talking. He might as well enjoy the food. It’s always better that way. A forkful of turkey, a forkful of vegetables, a spoonful of potato casserole, a bite of ginger biscuit, a sip of water.
“Pop! Look at what a mess you made!”
There is a glob of potato casserole on his shirt that had fallen from the spoon moments ago. One of the crispy onion straws trails from his mouth, hooking around his chin. He looks down, but the diner who had noticed it first is already wiping it away with her napkin. The onion straw falls to the floor.
“See what I mean? It’s like he doesn’t even notice things sometimes,” his wife says. Her mouth faces the ground even before she pushes her chair back and snatches the onion with her napkin. “Just like yesterday. Sometimes I swear I’m living with a five-year old. I skip my coffee so I can get his shirt from the dry cleaners before I have to wake him up and he drops potatoes on it. I spend an hour on the carpets and he goes and drops something greasy on them. God forbid I ever get ill.”
He lifts the spoon again, takes a bite of ginger biscuit, and sips his water. It is always better not to argue. His swallowing seems extremely loud until his wife finally raises a forkful of turkey to her trembling lip.
Dinner passes slowly, the diners taking turns interrupting his routines with “Are you eating enough? Do you want more?” and “How are you feeling?” A nod to the first; a shake of the head to the second; an “I’m fine” to the last. It is always better to keep things simple. They have their own opinions anyway.
By now the eyes of the guests are beginning to glaze. They pat their stomachs and recline in their chairs. His shadow hovers over his clean plate, his eyes tracing the maze of lines the gravy from the turkey has formed. A hand flutters across his vision, forming a dead end in his maze.
“We’re cleaning up now, okay? Let me take this to the kitchen.” The maze disappears, leaving only the white glare of the tablecloth.
All of the diners have left the table. His wife and two of the guests stand in the doorway behind him, whispering and watching.
“I’m going to bed,” he says to no one in particular. The whispers stop and his wife says, “He used to stay awake until midnight.”
A guest softly places a hand on his wife’s shoulder and slowly pats it in a reassuring gesture. Her shoulders hunch toward her ears. She isn’t used to that.
“We’ll be in to help you in one second, Pop,” someone calls to him.
He pads down the hallway and continues past the bedroom, instead easing onto one of the living room chairs. He watches the whirring fan overhead, the blades blurring until they fade into the ceiling.
“What are you doing in here, Pop?” The diner yells into the kitchen “He’s in the living room!” and reaches for his hand. “Here, let’s get you into your bed.”
“I’m fine,” he says. The other diners form a circle around his chair. His wife is at the front, her thin arms folded across her chest and her gaze flitting between his face, his hands, and his feet.
“It’s great that he’s still awake,” says one.
“Maybe he wants dessert!”
“That’s always a good sign, right?”
“But it won’t last,” says his wife. “It never does.”
One of the guests pushes a cookie into his hands, a napkin holding it like a cradle. “Try it, Pop. It’s good!”
He bites into it, knowing this will please the diners. Sure enough he hears hums of satisfaction in between the loud chomps of his cookie. All the guests sit with their napkins cradling piles of cookies; the room echoes with munches and fills with the scents of lemon zest, cherries, coconut, and chocolate. The chocolate chips melt in his mouth and crumbs rest on his lips. The blades of the fan blend into the ceiling.
“Well, we better get on home. We’ll see you soon, okay?”
He blinks and the blades jump away from the plaster. The diners clutch their coats around their waists, each leaving a kiss upon his cheek.
“Goodnight,” he says.
His wife follows the guests to the front door, her mouth drawn farther toward the ground. “Leaves me with a lotta cleanin’ up to do,” she mumbles.
“It will be better tomorrow,” is the reply.
“Maybe we should have dinner at my house next time,” one diner murmurs to another.
“No, that will just upset things,” says another.
“Goodbye, Grandma!” the young girl calls, trying to cover up the side conversation.
“Don’t say ‘goodbye,‘” one guest whispers harshly. “It’s ‘see you soon.’”
His wife bites her lip and waves before shoving her hands into her pockets. “Hope it wasn’t too terrible for you.”
The murmurs of “goodnight” fold into the blanket of the evening. He listens to the engines of the cars coming slowly to life, stuttering with the chilly air. The sound turns into a smooth purr, and soon the hum of the last car dies away and follows the road from the house.
It is quiet now. The grandfather clock in the hallway chimes ten o’clock. He sits peacefully in the chair—he always loves when it is quiet after the guests leave. It isn’t that they don’t understand, or that they try to help. It is that they don’t let him try anymore. If they don’t let him try, why should he try at all? It’s better this way. This way, it is quiet.
The sound of running water escapes from the kitchen. He presses his palms into the cushions on either side of him, raising himself until he reaches his height. His footsteps shuffle along the path to the kitchen. Bubbles fly from the sink, a stack of dirty plates submerged in the murky water. Every few seconds a soapy plate dives under the faucet, pausing there until all its bubbles slide away. A new stack of wet plates grows gradually—his wife will dry them all at once instead of one at a time.
He looks over his shoulder, his eyes scanning the hallway to the bedroom. It would be dark and silent there. He turns back to the noisy faucet and the white bubbles.
The towel is hanging in its usual place, and he grabs it in one hand and takes a plate in the other. His wife glances in his direction while he begins to rub each dish with meticulous care. The wrinkles around her eyes glow under the shine of the lamp. Her reflection in the surface of his plate is slouched against the counter and her eyelids are half-closed, but her grip on the faucet doesn’t waver. He remembers how it used to be like this every night. She didn’t need the counter then. She would pass him a plate and by the time he dried it and placed it in the cabinet, she would be holding the next one. He slowly rubs his towel over the first plate until all the lingering water droplets have disappeared before reaching for the next one.
“Thank you,” she says. Her mouth twitches toward the lights on the ceiling.
About The Author
Alysha’s Bio
BIO:

Currently studying creative writing and psychology at the University of Southern California, Aly alternates her time between Los Angeles and Pennsylvania. Writing everything from novels to song lyrics, Aly enjoys all forms of life and writing, yet still maintains a balance that a yin yang sign would envy.
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