Chapter Text
Family dinners at the table aren’t a thing until your brother turns six years old. Your mom makes spaghetti, and you peek your head over the counter to try and sneak some because it’s your favorite.
“Patient, Summer.” Mom moves your hand away, then she turns to the cupboard and grabs the plastic plates you and your brother use. “Can you put these on the table for me?”
“I guess.”
You take the plates and drag your feet to the dining room because Mom always asks you to do stuff for her, which isn’t fair because she never asks your brother, even though at his age you were already wiping the windows and cleaning your own room. Your dad says it’s because he’s slower than you were at his age, which you think might be true because he’s always stumbling and didn’t say his first words until he was three. Your mom says it’s because you’re more capable, and you think that might be true too because you learned how to reheat your own food at five and your brother is a year older than that and doesn’t even hold his fork right. Still, you think, it’s not fair that you have to do everything.
You place the plates on the table, one on top of the other, and you try to remember the names of the characters that adorn them.
“Mmm, something smells good!”
You know your dad came downstairs, and you know he’s in the kitchen talking to your mom because he always speaks at a volume that’s only necessary if the person he’s talking to is two rooms away from him.
“Well I’d hope so, Jerry. Otherwise I spent an hour doing this for nothing while you sat upstairs doing what God knows is nothing all evening.”
“C’mon Beth, you know I’ve been between jobs.”
“When are you not? Honestly, Jerry, it’s as if–”
Sprinkles, you finally remember, when you spot the koala wearing a pink tiara and tutu. You haven’t watched the show since you were seven, but Dad still thinks it’s your favorite so he always buys you rainbow glitter covered memorabilia of the characters no matter how often you tell him you’re about to be double digits and the girls at school don’t wear shirts with flying unicorns on them anymore either.
The voices you’ve learned to tune out from the kitchen come to a stop and you look away from the plates when you see dad come in.
“Hey sweetie! Guess we’re eating at the table tonight, huh?”
“Mom didn’t tell me that,” you say suspiciously.
“Did she not?” Dad sounds nervous. “We discussed it earlier, thought it’d be fun to eat as a family! C’mon, I brought the plates!”
“I already got me and Morty’s plates.” You point to them to prove your point.
“So you did!” You see him beam as he picks up the pink plastic plate that you remember him showing you on his trip back from the store one day. “Smart girl, Summer! Help me set them up, yeah? I’ll go back to get utensils.”
He sets the plastic plate back down along with two adult plates, which you think you’re old enough to eat from by now too. He leaves back to the kitchen so you don’t correct him that bringing the plates to the table was mom’s idea. You like when people say you’re smart, because your mom is smart and you want to be like her one day. You already sort of are, you think as you place the plastic plates next to each other and the adult plates directly across. You’ve started wearing your hair up lately just like mom does when she goes to work, you don’t even mind that you had to teach yourself how to do it because she always gave the excuse of “Later” when you asked and that’s what capable girls do anyway.
Dad comes back and finishes setting up the cups and utensils, and Mom brings a pot with the spaghetti out and sets it in the center of the table. You sit down at the plate that doesn’t have Sprinkles on it and watch your dad sit across from you. You wanted to sit across from your mom and you hope your disappointment doesn’t show.
“Jerry, where’s Morty?”
“Oh!” Your dad suddenly sits up straighter. “He’s in the living room, I put on a movie for him earlier.”
“Jerry!” Your mom hisses, and you shrink down a little and wish you had something to distract yourself with. “He’s six.”
“Yeah?” Dad chuckles and you can tell it’s because he’s nervous and not because he thinks it’s funny, but you’re not sure if your mom knows that.
“You can’t leave him alone downstairs!”
“You’re down here, I didn’t think it was a big deal!”
“Bring your son in here. Now.”
Mom huffs when he leaves the room, then she looks at you like you’re in trouble too but she doesn’t say anything, just grabs the spaghetti and forks noodles onto her plate before pushing the pot towards you.
You reach to pull it closer and copy her portion, but before you can place the pot back she shakes her head and nods to the plate next to yours.
“Serve your brother too, please.”
You try not to sigh, because you know if you were his age she’d probably make you serve yourself. You give him a smaller amount of food, which you think makes sense because he’s small, but your mom gives you a look so you put more on the plate until she nods and you can put the pot back in the center of the table.
Dad re-enters the room with your little brother in tow, he lifts himself into the chair next to yours and picks up the fork with his whole hand. He mumbles something to you but you’re not paying attention because you can tell your parents didn’t decide to eat at the table for no reason and you want to know why.
“Are we in trouble?” You ask.
“What?” Your mom looks bewildered.
“We like, never eat at the table.” You’ve been saying ‘like’ a lot lately because you hear all the cool older girls at school saying it and you want them to like you.
“Well…” your mom looks at your dad. “We decided we’ll eat as a family from here on out.”
“Why?” You don’t get the point, you never do stuff as a family. It’s always either you and mom, Dad and Morty, you and Dad, or, most oftenly, just you, just Mom, just Dad, and just Morty. Never Summer, Morty, Mom, and Dad. Never all together unless it’s important or bad.
“Because it’s important that we do things as a family, Summer.”
You want to ask why again, it’s never been important before, so why is it important now? But your mom is smiling in that way she does when she’s pretending like she’s not tired of you or your brother so you stay quiet and jam a forkfull of spaghetti in your mouth.
The whole thing is awkward, and everyone can tell no one really wants to be there, but your mom and dad force conversation anyway and you act like you’re interested in it too, because maybe things will change and maybe they want you here, and maybe they ignore whatever your snotty little brother says but they don’t ignore what you say so you pretend not to notice.
You all eat dinner together every night after that, and it’s quiet and unpleasent at first but eventually everyone gets so good at pretending that you start to feel like the families you see on tv.