Chapter 20
Conversations stopped, heads turned. A hush fell over the room. We are taking Leo, I said. And we are taking Mia. You two can finish your meal, but when you get back to Miami, I promise you there will be a welcoming committee waiting for you that you are not going to like. I turned to Leo. Pack your things, son.
We are moving to a different room. Leo didn’t hesitate. He grabbed his iPad and stood up. He walked around the table and stood next to Mia. He didn’t look at his parents. Austin put his head in his hands. Monica stared at the shattered plate, the yellow note now swimming in a pool of butter and broken ceramic.
‘Enjoy the cruise,’ I said. I took Mia’s hand with my left and Leo’s hand with my right. We turned our backs on the window view. We turned our backs on the table and we walked away, leaving them in the ruins of their own gluttony. The silence that followed the shattering of the lobster plate lasted exactly 3 seconds.
In the military, we call this the calm before the contact. It is that brief, breathless moment when the enemy is processing the shock of the ambush before their survival instincts kick in. I expected Austin to speak. I expected him to apologize or to beg or even to get angry. But Austin did nothing. He shrank into his floral shirt, a spineless jellyfish of a man who was terrified of confrontation.
But Monica was not a jellyfish. She was a viper. and I had just stepped on her tail in front of her entire digital audience. She did not cry immediately. First, her eyes narrowed. She looked at the phone that was still recording face up on the table. She looked at the faces of the diners around us who were staring with open mouths.
She realized that her carefully curated narrative of the perfect vacation was dissolving. She had two choices. She could admit she was a monster who abandoned a child, or she could paint me as the villain. She chose the villain, ‘Help!’ She screamed. It was a blood curdling sound, a theatrical, piercing shriek that was designed to trigger every primal protective instinct in the room.
‘He is taking them. He is kidnapping my children. Someone help me, please.’ She threw herself across the table, knocking over the wine bucket. Ice and water spilled everywhere, soaking the tablecloth and dripping onto the floor. She did not care. It was part of the set dressing. She scrambled toward us, grabbing Leo’s arm with a grip that looked painful.