sat back slowly, her smile turned into a smirk. In her mind, she’d just won the argument. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said.
My mother shrugged. She looked at Elise and then at me. She pushed her half-eaten pizza away from her.
“It doesn’t,” she said. “I know.”
Shortly after dinner that evening, Elise pretty much had the same argument with my father. It was just louder. Poor Susan O’Dell sat blinking into her eggnog as my father got increasingly agitated by the idea of Elise becoming a stay-at-home mom. He stood up and paced around the dining room, almost bumping right into the glass-topped table. Was she crazy? he wanted to know. Did she not understand that she was brilliant and immensely talented? Did she forget how hard she had worked? Did she realize what she was throwing away?
Elise sipped hot chocolate and answered every charge. She only raised her voice when he interrupted her. And when she needed to talk to me or Susan, to ask us to please pass the cinnamon or the whipping cream, her voice was calm and polite. The louder he got, the more her gaze wandered, to her watch, to her nails, to Susan O’Dell’s pretty and alarmed-looking face.
“Should we give them some space?” Susan whispered, her eyes on mine.
I shook my head. “This is kind of how it goes,” I said. I didn’t actually say Get used to it, but I hoped she got the idea. She seemed nice enough. She was quiet, but alert-looking, with a suprising spread of freckles across the bridge of her graceful nose. She was maybe ten years younger than my mother. At dinner, she laughed appreciatively at almost everything my father said. He was charming. He told good stories. He pulled her chair out for her and asked her opinion on a recent ruling by the State Supreme Court. But after dinner, because of Elise, she got to see what he was like when he was mad.
“Was this Charlie’s idea? Did he just want to take the job here, whether you could get one or not?”
“You’re seriously asking me that?” Elise shook her head and yawned. She put her feet up in his empty chair. “How much eggnog have you had?”
They stared at each other.
“I can always go back,” she said. “I get to keep my degree, you know. I also get to keep my brain.”
My father did not smile. “You’re stepping off the ladder, honey.” He pointed down at her. “Don’t kid yourself. They’re not going to let you back on.”
She met his eyes, her smile gone. She didn’t like him pointing, maybe. She looked tired all at once. “I stepped off the ladder when I said I wanted to come home for Christmas,” she said. “I stepped off the ladder when I asked for three days off instead of two.”
I looked into the corner of the room, where my father had placed his poinsettia. Elise and I had placed all our gifts around it, almost hiding the plant from view. We’d assumed there wouldn’t be a tree.
“Susan has a kid.” My father nodded at Susan O’Dell, who looked suddenly ill. “Susan has a kid, and she always worked. She did it.”
“I should go,” Susan O’Dell said. She wasn’t talking to anyone, just announcing it to the room.
“I changed my major,” I said, with a similar volume and tone. “I’m not pre-med anymore. I’m doing English literature. I might go to grad school. For literature.”
Everyone looked at me.
“I think I’ll be happier,” I added. “I’ll try harder and do better. I’ll always want to go to work, you know, if I’m doing something I love.”
I lowered my eyes, studying my hot chocolate. My non sequitur had actually been thought out, though only for about ten seconds. I’d understood, all at once, that this was the time to strike. For one, Susan O’Dell’s nervous presence was keeping my father somewhat in check. He was yelling, but not as much, and not quite as loudly, as he would have been if she weren’t there. Furthermore, Elise’s defection was so much more extreme. In a year, she would be a housewife. I would be in grad school. There was a big difference.
My father pressed both hands against the top of his head. He looked at Elise. He looked at me. “What the hell is happening here?” He looked at Susan O’Dell. “Talk to them!” he said. “They need a strong role model. Now!”