I arrived at exactly one o’clock and found all three of them already seated at a corner table near a window. My father stood halfway when he saw me, then sat again as if remembering we were not that formal a family. My mother rose with both arms extended, perfume preceding her like a weather system.
“Christina, darling,” she said, kissing the air beside my cheek. “We hardly see you.”
“I’ve been busy,” I said, sliding into the chair across from Bethany.
Bethany did not get up. She glanced at me over her phone, then returned to scrolling. Her hair was freshly highlighted, her nails a glossy pale pink, her sweater soft and cream-colored with a designer logo small enough to be expensive. She was twenty-nine, though in moments like that she could still look sixteen: bored, pretty, waiting to be served.
“You always say work is busy,” my father said.
“That’s because work is busy.”