I pause as the server returns, setting down salads in front of us. I spear a piece of lettuce on my fork. “Really, this is the first time I’ve been back to Scotland since…”
My father shifts in his chair.
“How long would it have been?” I ask him, my tongue loose, my inhibitions lifted. Why should I be the only one feeling uncomfortable here? The more the merrier.
“I think you were ten,” he says.
“That’s right,” I say. “And we didn’t travel anywhere that trip. We barely even left the house.”
My father fidgets again.
A server refills my glass, and I reach for it, my eyes meeting Jacob’s above the rim. He’s glaring.
Salud, pal. I take a long sip.
The table grows quiet for a moment, but Jacob doesn’t break eye contact. His expression and voice are hard when he says, “So, all of this traveling you do, is it for business or pleasure?”
And I’m so glad I’ve finished swallowing, because otherwise I would have choked. “It’s for work,” I say.
“Ah.” Jacob leans forward. “And what is it you do for work?”
Heat floods my face, my cheeks burning. I don’t want to tell him. I don’t know how this new, sharper-edged version of him is going to respond. “I work in television.”
“A travel show?”
“There’s a travel element to it,” I say. “But it’s primarily a dating show.”
Jacob doesn’t snort, but from the way his mouth twists, it’s almost as if he’s holding one in.
It hurts, this judgment from a man who seemed so different last night, but the sting doesn’t last for long.
“You’ve seen some of it before,” Maggie tells Jacob. “It’s the show Ajit and I watched all last summer.”
I pivot to my father. “You’ve watchedLove in the Sun?”
“I…” He ducks his head slightly. “Yes, I’ve watched it.”
He has?He’s never told me that before. I didn’t even know that he knew the name of the show I worked on. But maybe it was just a coincidence, something Maggie put him on to.
Plates of chicken or fish are placed in front of each of us, and the table-wide conversation dies down as people start eating.
“I didn’t know the show aired in the UK,” I say to my father.
He slices into his chicken, his gaze averted. “It doesn’t, but Maggie found it online. On streaming.” He pauses. “How is it all going? Your work?”
“Good. Great, actually. I got promoted this past year. More responsibility, so I’m even busier than before, and the traveling’s still a lot”—and the network is as stubborn as ever—“but overall, it’s going well.”
“That’s good.” He reaches for his water, but he doesn’t pick it up. He just holds it, his fingers tightening around the glass. “And your mother? She’s doing okay?”
There’s no inflection in his words, no intonation, and his face doesn’t show a hint of what he’s thinking.
“Yes. She’s happy,” I say. I don’t offer anything more. Dad knows that Mom got remarried years ago, but except for that call he made to her six months ago, I don’t think the two of them have spoken in years.
“I’m glad,” he says, the words quiet.
Maggie pulls him into a conversation then, one she’s having with a relative on her side, and I watch my father join in, his posture immediately relaxing.
It pokes at something within me, putting pressure on an old bruise. I take another sip of my wine.
