The Summer Home

15. The Family Dinner

     Nathan had kept to himself for most of the weekend, but there was one thing he was unable to avoid and that was Sunday dinner. His father insisted that he come to the table, and rather than put up a fight Nathan turned up more out of respect for Sonya's cooking. To this point she hadn't failed to put out a sweet spread for the family this summer. The food was great as always and this time Nathan went out of his way to avoid being a part of the usual dinner conversations because the last thing he wanted to do was bring up whatever new information he had learned over the weekend. It wasn't until a different subject came up that Nathan couldn't help himself. Jacob was talking about something that had happened to a friend if his back in the city. Apparently his parents had caught him with a small stash of pot in his sock drawer. Nathan bit his tongue since he thought that had to be the stupidest place to hide any drugs from your parents. You might as well have just left it on the counter because the sock drawer is usually the first place every parent would look when spot checking your room. This wasn't the issue that caused the slip up; it was something his father said only a few moments later.

     "Well," Sonya started, "I'm glad we don't have to worry about that issue here. I really hope you guys think long and hard before doing something as bad as drugs."

     "She's right," Peter agreed, "They're very bad for you..."

     It was this point where Nathan almost spit his food out of his mouth and back onto his plate.

     "Sorry." Nathan said as he tried to clean himself up with his napkin.

     "Is there something wrong?" Peter asked as he wasn't sure what was going on.

     "I don't know," Nathan said as he suddenly felt empowered knowing something that he wasn't supposed to know. "It just seemed a tad hypocritical for you of all people to be telling anyone not to do drugs. You're like the Keith Richards of the literary world."

     "Mom, who's Keith Richards?" one of the girls suddenly asked.

     "No one honey," Sonya said with a smile. "Eat your carrots."

     "I know who Keith Richards is." Jacob said and he didn't look impressed. "Are you trying to imply that Peter does drugs?"

     "Well from what I know Keith Richards doesn't do drugs anymore." Nathan replied, "And neither does Dad from what I've seen of him this year."

     "What gave you the impression I did them at all?" Peter asked, somewhat curious to where all this was coming from.

     "Are you denying it?" Nathan said as he responded with a question.

     "I didn't say that." Peter replied. "Who told you any of this?"

     "Maybe Ray told me." Nathan said trying to deflect attention away from his real source. "Maybe he told me that you got so trashed and high from the benders you went on after you moved out that he had to talk you out of jumping off a bridge and nearly killing yourself! I guess you had to be pretty smashed and out of your mind to even consider doing something like that!"

     Nathan stopped speaking to realize that everyone at the table was silent as most of the people there were I the state of shock. Sonya had her hand over her mouth and was on the verge of tears. She walked away from the table and back into the kitchen. Jacob looked like he was ready to jump across the table and smack Nathan around a bit, which made Nathan happy there was a table between them in the first place. Nathan looked back at his father who face had turned a shade of red, but really what could he do? Chances are most of what he was throwing at his father was true to begin with. He was being confronted with truth rather than lies.