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“You dears must be starving,” Mrs. Afton drawls, setting the plates of food onto the table. Plaid pink oven mitts adorn her hands, and the aroma of steak, potatoes, and greens wafts lusciously through the dining room. Everyone in the family is sat there—even little Teddy, who’s awake for once and watching contently from his high chair—but Mrs. Afton’s calculating green eyes are on the odd ones out: her daughter Elizabeth and her best friend Charlie, who’s from the house next door. She continues, setting down a bowl of broccoli, “What have you two been doing all day?”
“Playing,” Elizabeth replies as if it were obvious. The seven year old is known, to pretty much everyone, for being endearingly matter-of-fact. She shoots a look at Charlie, who adds on with a cheeky grin.
“We made a mud hut,” Charlie says.
Mrs. Afton raises her brows. “Oh, my. In whose yard?”
“Mine, don’t worry.”
“Well, as long as it isn’t here. We’ve paid quite the small fortune for all this landscaping. Pity for it to go to waste, hm?” The two girls giggle and whisper amongst themselves. After setting down the last of the meal, Mrs. Afton takes off her mitts and looks to her husband across the table. “Isn’t that right, dear?”
Mr. Afton chuckles warmly. “Yes, honey,” he says, with a quick glance out the window.
“Well, serve yourselves.” She gestures to the food. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
With Mrs. Afton gone, food is passed around and plates are filled. When she returns with a new lack of oven mitts and apron, chatter is abound: Elizabeth and Charlie are still whispering conspiratorially between short bursts of laughter, Michael is talking formally with his dad, and Teddy chats to himself as he takes clumsy bites of mashed potato. She joins them and completes the circle, talking with Teddy and helping him eat, but it isn’t long before they all get caught up in the same conversation. The topic is one that makes Elizabeth’s big green eyes seem to shine even brighter.
“My birthday!” she announces, beaming. “The party’s next week.” She looks at Charlie, as if to make sure she heard. “It’s on Tuesday.”
Charlie laughs, “I know, Ellie. You gave me the invitation yesterday.”
“I know that, I just wanted to make sure you remembered.” A beat. Then, “You liked the invitation, right? I made it myself.”
“‘Course I did, it was really cute.”
“Your father and brother are coming, aren’t they Charlie?” Mr. Afton asks. Charlie turns to the man, who even at the dinner table is still taller than everyone else, and nods, looking directly into his eyes.
“They are,” she says politely. “Sammy’s worried that he’s gonna get a stomach-ache again, though.”
“Oh? I wasn’t aware he got one last time.”
A mischievous smile creeps onto her face, and she stifles a giggle, remembering the last party she and her twin went to. “He ate too much cake.”
“Well, that won’t do, will it?” Mr. Afton smiles in return. “We’ll have to regulate his servings, then.”
“He’ll have to pay a thousand tickets for every slice he wants!”
“And who will the tickets go to, me or you?”
Charlie assumes a contemplative expression, as if deep in thought. She even rests her chin in her hand. “Both of us,” she decides seriously after a long moment. “Because I came up with the idea, so I get half.”
“And I get the other half because I’m the owner, is that right?”
Charlie snickers. “Yes.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Elizabeth interjects indignantly; “It’s my birthday, why can’t I get half?”
“We can’t have three halves, love, that’s ridiculous.”
“I’ll have half of Charlie’s half.”
“That’s a quarter,” Charlie whispers.
“Yeah, father, I’ll have a quarter. I think that’s fair.”
“I think you children have better things to do than figure out the best way to extort money from your brother, Charlie,” Mrs. Afton butts in with a small, wicked smile. Michael snorts from across the table, not looking at either of them; Mr. Afton laughs heartily.
“What about me, dear?” he asks, leisurely amusement written across his face.
“I already covered that, honey. I said you children should do something else.”
Mr. Afton scoffs in mock offense, a corner of his mouth quirked upward. “See how she treats me?” The question is directed to Charlie, but she doesn’t realize until she finishes a bite of food and looks back up to see the man’s gaze meeting hers.
She only looks at Mrs. Afton and laughs a little. They resume eating, until a short while later when Michael seems to want to say something.
He purses his lips.
“Father—”
“Yes, son?”
“I was wondering—er, could I skip Lizzie’s party?”
“What??” Elizabeth grabs the table with both hands, shoots up from her seat. “Mikey, you can’t do that! You can’t! It’s my birthday!”
“Yeah but, it’s just that I agreed to hang out with some friends and I hadn’t realized—”
Mr. Afton sets down his utensils. He levels a cold gaze at his son.
“Michael,” he admonishes.
And the table goes quiet.
Charlie furrows her brow and gives Elizabeth a confused look. “What’s—” she starts to ask, but stops when she sees Elizabeth shaking her head. She sits down. Michael, across from her, audibly swallows. Mr. Afton is still looking at him. There’s a long, strange silence.
“...That is a horribly rude thing to suggest in front of your sister,” he finishes.
Michael seems to exhale in relief. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t h—”
“Apologize to Elizabeth, not to me.”
Michael looks at Elizabeth. He looks like a miniature version of his father, Charlie realizes for maybe the first time, having the exact same features even down to skin tone. He levels his gaze at his sister politely.
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth.”
“It’s okay, Michael.”
And they resume eating. Charlie casts a bewildered look around the table, but says nothing. She feels like she shouldn't; she has a knack for these things.
Some few minutes later, she excuses herself to go to the bathroom. Mr. Afton watches as she goes.