Family Dinner

What a lousy idea. No, really. What a terrible, awful, no-good idea!

You knew this from the second you agreed to dinner at Lanius' house. It was no surprise. Yet it didn't really hit you until you were standing on her front porch.

Just knock already. It's too late to turn back now, you thought to yourself. Knock. Knock, goddamnit! At this rate, you were going to hyperventilate yourself into unconsciousness!

You ended up not needing to. The door opened without you knocking.

"Are you ready to come inside, or do you need a few more minutes of me pretending I don't know you're here?" Lanius asked sheepishly. It still felt like she was teasing you, though.

"I will turn around right now, I swear to God," you threatened. It was an empty one, but you wanted her to think you would.

"In that case, no more time allotment for you. Get in here."

Lanius motioned you inside and, like a fool, you followed. Another strike of panic hit you once the door was closed behind you and there was no way to go but forward. But then her scent washed over you and you found yourself relaxing a little, almost despite yourself.

After hanging up your coat, hat, and gloves, she wrapped an arm around you and started pulling you through the ground floor of her home.

You didn't get to see a lot of the interior last time you were here, but it really was beautiful. Just as pretty on the inside as it was on the outside. Every room was bright and lively and absolutely packed with people. Most of all the kitchen.

To be fair, though, they needed every pair of hands they could get. There was enough food to feed an army. Like, three families' Thanksgivings worth of food! Hopefully they didn't prepare all this for you. You weren't even sure you could eat with the ball of nerves in your stomach.

You saw most people moving finished dishes into the adjacent dining room. In an effort to be helpful, you went to grab something... Only to be stopped by three different people, including Lanius, who looked at you like you just committed the ultimate faux-pas.

"I'm sorry," you blurted out, wringing your empty hands. "I didn't mean to-- I was just trying to help."

"You're not allowed to help," one of the girls your age said with a smirk before walking past you with a bowl of mac and cheese.

"Why not?" Did they think you were going to poison the food?

Lanius didn't look too pleased by the girl's comment. "What she means is that you're not required to help," she clarified.

"Because I'm a guest?" That would make a whole lot more sense.

"Kind of?" She laughed, scratching the back of her head. "It's an old family tradition that I don't have time to explain." They sure did have a lot of weird family traditions. You wondered if it would be rude to ask where they got them from. Who knows if they would even be able to tell you? A lot of traditions were like that: untraceable.

After that little debacle, Lanius kept a hand on you at all times, either on your shoulder or the small of your back. You dragged your feet from room to room.

She introduced you to everyone, but you forgot most of their names as soon as they were said because it was a lot of names to remember. You belatedly thought about keeping a head count or remembering people based on their relation to Lanius, but that was by the time you were over halfway into the introduction circuit.

Like Lanius, everyone was friendly --almost too friendly-- to you, a stranger intruding on their dinner party. It was like it never even occurred to them to be awkward or uncomfortable. In comparison, you were clumsy as a preteen.

And, like Lanius, everyone was big and healthy. You didn't spot a single frail grandparent huddled in a wheelchair or kid sucking on an inhaler, no matter where you looked. There should have been at least one of those in a group of this size. You didn't know why, but it struck you as odd. Oh well.

By the time the meet-and-greet was over, most of the others were already seated, idly talking amongst themselves. The dinner table was cartoonishly large, like it belonged at a king's feast. You counted more than twenty chairs, almost all of them filled.

"Do I just sit anywhere or...?"

"No, I sit at the head of the table, and you sit next to me, on my right." That was oddly specific.

"Another Lanius family tradition?" You theorized. She gave you a very indulgent smile, like you were a smart cookie, and nodded. "Any other traditions I need to know about? Do you say grace?"

"No grace. Just don't eat until I've had my first bite. Then everyone else will eat after you take your first bite." Weird. But when in Rome...

The two of you sat down at the last two available seats. You looked down at your plate to find you'd already been served. All things you liked, too, except for the small cut of mystery meat in the corner of your plate that you guessed was venison. Again, strange.

You expected Lanius to give a speech or something, but nothing as formal as that happened. Instead, she just cut off a bloody piece of her venison and stuffed it in her mouth like a wild beast. Yikes! You hoped yours wasn't that rare. You followed her example and found that it thankfully wasn't.

She didn't even wait for you to swallow before asking, "How is it? It's good, right? I seared it myself!"

Your table manners weren't much better than hers, so you pushed all your food into one cheek before answering, "It's good. You did a good job." That tiny scrap of praise was enough for her to let you finish eating in peace.

As you gradually cleaned your plate, Lanius talked with other friends and family at the table. You were thankful for the reprieve from her attention. You'd never been the subject to such aggressive friendliness before. You... Didn't hate it.

Just when you were starting to feel like you were glad you came tonight, you heard it. The sound of a glass breaking.

It was such a little thing. One of those two dozen people lost a game of Tetris with the table placement and accidentally knocked their water glass to the hardwood floor, where it shattered into pieces.

So small, borderline inconsequential. But it immediately ruined the evening for you.

Suddenly, you were back in your mother's house, sitting at her table, with her screaming in your ear as she broke another dish. "Don't you take that tone with me! Don't you dare-- I am your mother!"

"Y/N?" Lanius asked, looking at you with those big, gold eyes of her, her expression perturbed. It was like she could hear your pounding heartbeat, sense the distress coming off of you in ways.

You're okay, you told yourself. You thought you had it under control.

You were wrong.

The room started to spin, felt like it could close on you at any moment. You began to sweat and shake, pant like an animal that may die of stress at any moment. Probably because that's what you felt like.

"I'll be right back," you said. You tried to keep your voice calm and steady, but instead it sounded like you were gasping for air. "I just need a cigarette."

"You don't smoke," she replied.

Your vision swam as you stood from your seat. You must have looked unsteady, because Lanius' hands darted out to help you.

You batted them away like an angry cat. You didn't need her help. You needed time. You needed space. You needed out.

Somehow, you managed to make it to the front door. Someone was following you step for step, but you didn't have the energy to worry about saving face. You had to save yourself first.

It was snowing outside --really coming down-- as you stumbled out onto the porch. Each snowflake felt like a kiss on your hot, flushed face.

Then a wave of nausea hit you like a brick to the face and you vomited up your entire meal over the railing.

"Y/N!" Lanius said, hushed and concerned, before rushing over to hold your hair back as more retches rocked your frame.

You let out a whimper, which morphed into a sob, which quickly turned into an uncontrollable bout of crying.

Despite having no explanation for your behavior, despite how disgusting you were right now, the older woman cradled you close, stroking your back.

"I'm sorry," she murmured in your hair again and again, like a broken record. "I'm so sorry."

In the midst of your crying fit, you let out a hysterical huff of laughter. You'd always wanted to hear those two little words, that simple phrase, from your mother.

And you never, ever did.

She never apologized for anything. She never had any consideration of you or your feelings. There was never any accountability on her part. She was the center of the universe and she was perfect.

A memory stuck in your mind like gristle between teeth...

"You're hurting me," you had sobbed, twisting and turning like a worm on a hook, but her grip on you was iron shackle tight.

"Mother knows best," she said.

She didn't think of you as a person. She thought of you as a child.

And maybe she was right to do so.

You supposed you could run as fast and as far as your legs could carry you, but the blood pumping in your veins would still be hers. You'd always be your mother's daughter.

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Mr Wolf, Mr Wolf, what time is it?

Six o'clock...

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