The gold dress was wrinkled from the day before, but there was something almost formal about the way she crossed the dining room holding that little box.
Every aunt, uncle, cousin, and in-law watched her walk toward Lorraine.
No one interrupted her.
Zia stopped beside her grandmother.
“Grandma,” she said, her voice clear enough to reach the far end of the table, “Dad told me to give this to you if you ever ignored me again.”
Lorraine looked at the red velvet box.
Then she looked at Zia.
Her polished smile tightened, but she still seemed convinced she could reduce the moment to another example of everyone else being too sensitive.
“Well, isn’t that dramatic,” she said.
I watched Travis rise from his chair.
He moved behind Zia, close enough that she knew he was there without taking the box away from her or speaking for her.
Lorraine glanced toward him, perhaps expecting him to laugh, apologize, or turn the whole thing into a harmless family joke.
He did none of those things.
“Open it,” he said.
Lorraine took the box.
She lifted the lid slowly, still wearing that controlled expression, as though she already had a speech prepared about modern parenting, oversensitive children, and how nobody could take a joke anymore.
Then she looked inside.
