Page 13 of Making It Burn

Beau

The dining room at my parents’ estate could’ve doubled as a meat locker.

I sat at one end of the mahogany table that could comfortably seat fourteen, and I could see my breath when I exhaled.My mother, perched at the opposite end like a blonde icicle in Talbots, sipped her green tea with the serene expression of someone who found hypothermia “invigorating.”

My father sat between us, hidden behind the Wall Street Journal.

This was breakfast at the Thatcher household: three people, forty feet of table, and enough emotional distance to qualify as a demilitarized zone.

“More coffee, Mr.Beau?”Gracie appeared at my elbow, coffeepot in hand, her face carved from ancient stone and infinite patience.

“Please.”

She poured with the steady hand of someone who’d been doing this since the Roosevelt administration, which—given that Gracie had to be pushing eighty if she was a day—wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility.Her uniform was crisp and black, her silver hair pulled into a bun so tight it could’ve been classified as a weapon.

“Thank you, Gracie,” my mother said without looking up from her yogurt parfait, which she was eating with surgical precision—with exactly twelve almonds, no more, no less.

Gracie’s left eyebrow twitched.

That twitch was Gracie-speak for‘You’re welcome, Your Majesty, may I also polish your crown while I’m at it?’I’d spent my entire childhood learning to decode Gracie’s facial expressions, and I was fluent.

“Darling,” my mother said, finally deigning to look at me, “you seem distracted this morning.Is something wrong at work?”

“No.”The word came out too clipped.

My father lowered his newspaper exactly two inches, just enough to peer at me over the top.“That’s the voice of a man whose day is already ruined, and it’s only seven-thirty.What happened?Someone steal your parking spot on your first day?”

“Nobody stole my parking spot.”

“Lose a case?”

“I just started.”

“Get assigned to work with an idiot?”

Try my high school nemesis, who grew up to look like a Calvin Klein model and still makes me want to punch walls.

“Everything is fine,” I muttered.

Gracie, refilling my father’s coffee, rolled her eyes so hard I was concerned they’d get stuck.The message was clear:Sure, honey.And I’m the Queen of Windsor Farms.

“Well, you look tired,” my mother observed, tilting her head like an elegant bird examining a worm.“Are you getting enough sleep?You know how important rest is for cognitive function.Your father never sleeps more than five hours a night, and look what happened to him.”

“I’m sitting right here, Claudia.”

“Yes, dear.I’m aware.”

My father rattled his newspaper with the aggressive energy of a man who’d been married for thirty-five years and had exactly thirty-five years’ worth of grievances stored up.“If you’re tired, Beau, it’s probably because you’re staying up too late doing whatever it is your generation does.TikTok.Instagram.Cryptocurrency.All of it nonsense.”

“I don’t do TikTok.”

“That’s the one where people dance, isn’t it?”Mother asked.

“Among other things.”

“Ridiculous.”Dad turned the page of his newspaper loudly.

My mother set down her spoon with the delicate precision of someone defusing a bomb.“Howard, Beau is thirty-two years old.I don’t think he’s staying up late doing TikTok dances.”