She was eating.

“Dani, come on.”

“I’m asking.”

Patricia looked at me.

“What’s this about?”

“Nothing. I just want Andrew to answer.”

Andrew sighed.

“I didn’t think she needed it.”

Mom put down her fork.

“Why not?”

He looked uncomfortable now.

“Teresa, I wasn’t trying to offend you.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“Then what are we doing?”

I leaned forward.

“Why didn’t she need it?”

Andrew looked at me for a long moment.

Finally he said,

“I told the server to keep it simple for her.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning don’t start explaining a bunch of wines she’s never heard of.”

I stared at him.

Mom stayed quiet.

“You told the server that?”

Andrew rubbed his forehead.

“I said, ‘Just give her something simple. She doesn’t know this stuff.’ That’s it.”

Patricia immediately stepped in.

“And he was trying to be considerate.”

I turned toward her.

“How?”

“Daniela, your mother clearly isn’t used to places like this. Why put her on the spot?”

Mom looked at Patricia.

“Who said I was on the spot?”

Patricia blinked.

“Excuse me?”

“Who said I was uncomfortable?”

“Well, I assumed—”

“I noticed.”

Patricia’s mouth tightened.

“I was trying to make you feel welcome.”

Mom glanced at her empty place where the wine menu had been.

“By deciding what I could understand?”

“Oh, Teresa.”

Patricia gave a tired little laugh.

“Nobody said you couldn’t understand it.”

“Your son did.”

Andrew sat back.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Mom turned to him.

“Then what did you mean?”

“I meant you’re not familiar with this kind of thing.”

“What kind of thing?”

“Wine.”

Mom waited.

Andrew looked around the restaurant.

“This environment.”

There was something ugly about the way he said environment.

As if my mother had wandered into a room she wasn’t supposed to know existed.

Patricia folded her hands.

“Honestly, Teresa, you’ve been sitting there all evening acting perfectly comfortable. I don’t understand why you’re suddenly offended.”

Mom’s voice stayed level.

“I’m not suddenly anything.”

“Then why haven’t you said something?”

Mom looked directly at her.

“Because I wanted to hear how far you’d go if nobody stopped you.”

Patricia’s face changed.

Just slightly.

“Excuse me?”

Mom touched the faded sleeve of her dress.

“I wanted to know how you’d treat me if you thought I couldn’t do anything for you.”

Andrew let out a breath.

“Okay. This is ridiculous.”

“There Are Ways to Fit In”

Andrew looked at Mom.

“So you dressed like this on purpose?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“To see what happened.”

He gave a short laugh.

“So you baited my family.”

Mom looked down at her dress.

“With polyester?”

Charles coughed into his napkin.

Patricia shot him a look.

Andrew wasn’t amused.

“You deliberately tried to make us think you didn’t have money.”

“No. I wore an old dress.”

“You knew what impression it would give.”

Mom nodded.

“Apparently I did.”

Andrew turned to me.

“Dani, you see how messed up this is, right?”

I didn’t answer.

He leaned toward me.

“Your mom walked in here pretending to be poor so she could judge us.”

Mom’s expression hardened for the first time.

“I didn’t pretend to be poor.”

Andrew looked at her.

“Come on.”

“I was poor.”

Nobody spoke.

Mom rested her hands on the table.

“I bought this dress when Daniela was nine. I was working at a dental office during the day and a dry cleaner three nights a week.”

I looked at the little blue flowers.

I remembered them.

“I wore it to her parent-teacher conference because I didn’t have money for something new.”

Patricia glanced down at the dress again.

Mom caught her doing it.

“It’s clean. It fits. And it’s mine.”

Patricia looked away.

“Nobody is criticizing your past.”

Mom nodded.

“No. Just the evidence of it.”

Patricia’s face tightened.

“That’s unfair.”

Mom didn’t respond.

Andrew turned to me.

“Dani, seriously. Say something.”

I looked at him.

“Why didn’t you defend her?”

He stared at me.

“From what?”

That answer did more damage than anything Patricia had said.

“Your mother has been taking shots at her all night.”

“My mom talks like that with everyone.”

“That makes it better?”

“No, but you know her.”

I did.

And I had been saying the same thing for years.

That’s just Patricia.

Don’t take it personally.

She doesn’t mean it like that.

Andrew lowered his voice.

“I was trying to avoid an embarrassing situation.”

“What embarrassing situation?”

“Your mom ordering something she didn’t understand. Getting uncomfortable. Whatever.”

Mom looked at him.

“You were embarrassed for me?”

Andrew hesitated.

“I was trying to help you.”

“I didn’t ask for help.”

“That’s exactly why people help.”

The words came out quickly.

He seemed to regret them immediately.

I stared at him.

“People?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then explain it.”

He pushed his chair back an inch.

“Jesus, Daniela. My family has certain expectations. That’s all.”

“Of my mother?”

“Of everybody.”

“What expectations?”

He looked at me like I was forcing him to say something obvious.

“There are ways to fit in.”

I didn’t speak.

Andrew continued.

“And there are ways to walk into a room and make everyone else uncomfortable.”

I looked at Mom.

She was sitting quietly in her faded floral dress.

She hadn’t raised her voice.

She hadn’t complained about the restaurant.

She hadn’t criticized anyone.

And somehow she was the person making everyone uncomfortable.

I thought about our wedding.

About Patricia asking me whether Mom could “tone down” her guest list.

About Andrew suggesting Mom should let Patricia help choose her wedding outfit because his mother “understood formal events.”

About the time Patricia corrected Mom’s pronunciation of a French dish and Andrew laughed.

Little things.

Always little enough to excuse.

I looked down at my engagement ring.

What Andrew Thought He Was Fixing

Mom broke the silence.

“Can I ask you something, Andrew?”

He rubbed his jaw.

“Sure.”

“If I’d walked in wearing a three-thousand-dollar dress, would you have taken the wine list away from me?”

Andrew frowned.

“That’s a hypothetical.”

“It’s a question.”

“I don’t know.”

Mom nodded.

“I do.”

Patricia scoffed.

“This is unbelievable.”

Mom looked at her.

“What’s unbelievable?”

“You came here looking for reasons to dislike us.”

“No.”

“Then what exactly were you hoping would happen?”

Mom’s eyes moved toward Andrew.

“I was hoping he’d surprise me.”

Andrew went still.

That sentence landed differently.

Mom wasn’t smiling anymore.

“I was hoping you’d say, ‘Mom, knock it off.’”

Andrew looked away.

“I was hoping you’d hand me the wine list instead of taking it away.”

He said nothing.

“I was hoping my daughter had picked a man who didn’t need to know what somebody owned before deciding how much respect to give them.”

Andrew shook his head.

“That’s a hell of an accusation over a menu.”

Mom nodded.

“Then it should be easy to answer.”

Andrew looked at me.

“You’re really going to sit there and let her do this?”

I touched my ring.

“Do what?”

“Interrogate me.”

“She asked you two questions.”

“This entire dinner was a trap.”

Mom picked up her purse.

“Andrew, I didn’t tell your mother what to say.”

He didn’t answer.

“I didn’t tell you to laugh.”