Everyone laughed.
My mother. My father, from the couch. Even Poppy, who didn’t understand the joke but laughed because the grown-ups were laughing.
Everyone except me.
And Ben, who was standing in the kitchen doorway with a box of beach toys in his arms. Looking at the floor.
My mother was looking down at her phone.
Smiling at something on the screen. Typing. Smiling again.
When she noticed me watching, she quickly turned it over. Face-down. On the kitchen counter.
Ezoic
I didn’t ask why.
At the time, I was too angry to care.
I should have asked.
Melissa kept drinking.
She’d finished the first glass. She poured a second.
“You could at least look happy we’re here,” she said.
“You could have asked,” I said.
“It’s a family vacation,” Melissa said. She rolled her eyes. “Stop acting like we’re strangers.”
I looked at the suitcases piled in my hallway.
