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thought of it makes me want to scream. I haven’t seen that thing in six months. Squinting at Dad’s collection of junk, I see now that the red notebook is bigger and newer than the journal about me. Breathing out, I force my eyes to my task. Fork on the left. Knife on the right. Napkin folded into a triangle.
    A few silent minutes later, Mom glides through the door. Even at the end of the day, she’s pristine in sleek black pants and heels, tailored blouse and blazer, her dark hair in a flawless ponytail low on her neck.
    â€œHello,” she says. She flicks her eyes to me and gives me a tired smile before setting her bag on the corner desk and flipping through the mail.
    â€œHi, honey,” Dad says, pressing a dry kiss to her cheek. She barely moves, keeping her eyes on the bills and her latest
Real Simple
magazine.
    From there, all our movements fall into a well-practiced routine. Glasses are filled with ice and water. A wine bottle is uncorked. A family gathers around a table. “How was your day?” is thrown around without any expectation of a real answer.
    â€œNothing too out of the ordinary about my day,” Dad says. He doesn’t elaborate, and neither Mom nor I ask him to. We don’t want to hear about his classes and graduate students at Vanderbilt any more than he wants to tell us about them. “How about you, Hadley?”
    I feel Mom’s eyes on me, but I don’t remove mine from my cashew chicken. I’m almost positive Kat’s mom, Jocelyn, called her and told her about my locker, expressing her concern. Jocelyn, as luck would have it, is the guidance counselor at Woodmont High, which means she’s constantly trying to get me into her office to talk about my feelings while I squeeze all my stress into one of those squishy balls. Jocelyn is also the only person Mom still talks to at any length or depth.
    â€œFine.” Standard answer. Mom moves her steamed broccoli around her plate, drawing lines in the brown sauce. She actually looks bored.
    â€œHow’s your English class going?” Dad asks. “Your teacher—what’s her name?”
    I sigh. There was a time when small talk was a four-letter word in our house. Dinner used to look like a game of Trivial Pursuit, filled with questions that actually mattered and bizarre facts my parents had picked up from their respective jobs. Now small talk is the bread and butter of St. Clair repasts, full of empty calories that leave a sour aftertaste on the back of my tongue and a cavern in my stomach.
    â€œMs. Artigas.”
    â€œRight. She went to Vanderbilt for her bachelor’s. I hear she’s excellent. A real Shakespeare aficionado.”
    Mom exhales so loudly, Dad flinches.
    â€œShe has a graduate degree,” I say. “Did she get it at Vanderbilt? Your department, maybe?” Ms. Artigas
did
get her master’s at Vanderbilt, which I know full well, but in education rather than literature.
    Dad twists his mouth to one side. “As much as I love the Bard, you know Shakespeare’s not my department.”
    Oh, I know. “It’s all literature.”
    â€œI hadn’t heard either way, Hadley. You’ll have to ask her.”
    â€œI’ll do that.”
    Mom releases a tiny cough and I shift my eyes to her. She’s not looking at me, but she’s smiling slightly, like the two of us are in on some secret joke. I wait for a smile to lift my own mouth, but it never happens. Dad presses two fingers to his temple and rubs, chewing robotically.
    I stuff some rice in my mouth to keep from screaming.
    Mom scoots her chair out and grabs the wooden pepper mill from the island. Leaning over Dad, she grinds a small black mountain of pepper all over his chow mein. He blinks down at his plate, his nose already twitching.
    â€œHadley?” Mom says sweetly, holding up the mill.
    â€œUh . . . no, thanks.”
    She places it back on the counter before