At The Table

There wasn’t much to see around the edges of North Avenue Station, but Lana stared out onto the metro tracks as if searching for something grand. The train was running six minutes behind schedule, as usual, stuck somewhere in the void of Atlanta’s lacking transportation infrastructure.

Lana put in her headphones as the train finally lulled into the station and she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored windows rolling past. She pulled apart the messy bun on top of her head and attempted to find an acceptable style for her bristly hair as she boarded the train. But by the time she reached Civic Center, she knew any attempts to arrive appropriately groomed at her parent’s house were futile.

She lived six MARTA stops and a short walk from her parents; polished Decatur residents who had yet to embrace her partially-assembled Midtown life. By the time she arrived at the front door at 6:38pm, she had three missed calls from her mother, who opened the walnut front door before Lana could finish her first knock.

“You took a very slow route to get here.” Her mother ushered her into the house as if hiding a stow-away.

Lana hesitated while taking off her shoes and jacket at the door, opting at the last second to take a small black notebook out from her pocket.

“Mom, I’m twenty five and still come home for dinner every week. I’m eight minutes late. I can’t get in trouble in eight minutes.”

“Your sister managed to.” Her words popped in the air of the entryway. Lana could hear her father get out of his lounge chair in the other room.

“Alhamdlillah. Glad you’re here.” Her father, a balding Middle Eastern man with unremarkable features, walked across the room to give her a kiss on the forehead.

Her mother sighed. “Still, it was a very slow route.”

“I took MARTA.”

“What’s wrong with your car?” Her father asked.

“I live near a metro station now. This is easier.” Lana sat down at the dining room table, her fingers slightly quivering around the notebook.

Her mother sat down and started dishing out portions of rice. “You pay so much for that silly place and what? You live so close you can take a train. You should be living here.”

Her father chimed in. “Ya hayati, we've talked about this. Lana is doing quite well for herself with this new job.”

Her mother placed a napkin in her lap before taking a deep breath. “What does job success have to do with having your own apartment? She should be here. Until she is married. That's how it has always been.”

Lana stared at the blank wall behind her mother as her father tried to take on the ingrained notions of his wife.

“You took down the portrait,” Lana interrupted.

Her mother rolled her eyes. “I moved it to the bedroom.”

“Why?”

There was silence as her father started to pass around the salad dressing.

“Guests don’t need a reminder.”

“Wha - pardon?” Lana caught herself mid word. Her immigrant parents never appreciated the colloquial nature of Lana’s American speech.

“You wanted to know why the portrait moved. That’s why.” Her mom paused as she moved food around her plate. “It’s in our bedroom now, if you are so concerned with how I run this home.”

Lana had no care in the world about how her mother ran the house. But she cared deeply that two years after the accident, her mother had removed the one family portrait from the dining room.

“How’s work?” Her father chimed in, changing the subject from the missing portrait and therefore the missing seat at the table.

“Pretty stressful.”

“Well that’s good, they must like you.”

They split the remaining dinner conversation between talk of the United game and her father’s upcoming business trip to Los Angeles. Mundane topics without veiled emotional associations.

The clock in the living room chimed for the eight o’clock hour, prompting Lana to fold her napkin onto the table and grab the notebook she’d been hiding under her chair.

“Done already?” Her mother snarked.

“Mom, don’t say it like that.” Lana paused. “Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Hey? We spent all that money on private university for what? You sound like you haven’t set foot in a school.”

Lana took a deep breath. “Mom, Dad, I have a bit of a surprise for you.”

“Friday night dinners are for catching up with family, not for surprises.”

Lana ignored her mother’s retort. “After work, sometimes, well, I’ve been writing.”

“Why? I thought your job was in data analysis?” her mother said.

“Let her finish, please.” Her father sank further into his chair.

“I’ve been writing. Mostly about Celia. I can’t explain it, other than it’s been helpful to write about her and her life.” Lana carefully slid the notebook towards her parents. “Well, I want you to read it.”

Her mother stared at the notebook as if it were a stain on the tablecloth. “You wrote a novel about your sister?”

“Sort of, not a novel. More of a memoir. And this is the handwritten draft. It really just started because I missed her, but then I — I don’t know — I just kept writing.”

Her father finally picked it up and skimmed through the pages. “Well, that is lovely. I’m sure you have many great memories to write down. I think it is good for you to process.”

Lana took one more breath. “And I have one more surprise. I submitted it to a competition, and they really liked it. Actually, I won. I won $20,000.”

Her mother froze, and then jolted out of her chair. “So now you are monetizing your sister’s tragedy? Really, Lana. Haven’t we been through enough?”

“Mom, please. It’s not like that. I want people to know about her, know what a great person she was. And, what I really came to tell you is that, you know all that talk about putting a scholarship together in her name? I thought this could be the start of that.”

Her father looked up from the notebook. “Well that is rather unexpected.”

Her mother started clearing the table.

“Mom, I’d really like for you to read it.”

She gave her dad one last hug before walking out the door, stepping into the muted cul de sac lights that framed her childhood. It was a world that had been good to her and her sister and her parents as they navigated life as a new American family.

Her sister had always believed in writing, in all its confounding arrangements. Lana did hope that her mother might see that come through her writing.

As she boarded the MARTA train, Lana thought about how her own beliefs had so morphed over the last years, without her sister to interpret the meaning. Lana had lost a lot of things. Her faith. Her sister. But she’d learned to see the world through writing. And maybe that would be her healing.