Page 54 of Omega’s Fold

Eli is on the sofa with a glass already in his hand and his feet on the coffee table that we were never allowed to put our feet on. He grins at me over the rim of the glass.

“There he is. The cowboy.”

“Don’t.”

“Were there spurs?”

“No.”

“I’m just asking. Did you ride?”

“I rode in his truck. That is the extent of it.”

“Mm.” He takes a drink. “You look like shit.”

“Eli,” my mother calls from the dining room. “Language.”

“Sorry, Mom.” He looks at me. He drops his voice. “Seriously. How did it go?”

“Weird but I’m fine.”

“Jules.”

“Eli, I’m fine.”

He looks at me a beat longer than I want him to. Then he shrugs and he swings his legs down and goes to fix me a drink. A moment later, he hands me the glass.

“To being home.”

“To being home.”

We drink.

My mother calls us in to eat. The dining room is laid for four. The candles are lit. The wine is open and breathing on the sideboard. The food, as it always does, comes out of my mother’s kitchen in stages, and is, as it always is, very good.

For the first ten minutes nobody asks me anything. My father talks about a lecture he is giving in the spring. Eli tells a story about a colleague’s disastrous engagement party. My mother corrects him on a detail and then corrects him on a different detail and then asks me to pass the salt.

I pass the salt.

She looks at me.

“So,” she says. “How was it? What happened?”

I set my fork down. The three of them are looking at me.

“It didn’t take,” I say. “I was at the Bureau yesterday. The file’s closed.”

A small silence.

My father makes a small harrumphing noise.

Eli says, “Jules.”

My mother does not say anything for a long second. Her hands stay folded.

“There now, my love,” she says.

“It’s all right, Mom.”