Dinner as a Family

by Mark Joseph Kiewlak

Charlotte was standing on the bed between her parents pointing the gun at one then the other. I was in the doorway near the light switch. It was dark in the room. No moonlight. No light from the hall.

"Charlotte ," I said. "This is no good."

She had a pair of handcuffs and she dropped them on the bed. "Put them on," she said to both of them. "I want you handcuffed to each other."

"Charlotte ," her father said, "put the gun down."

"The hell I will."

Her father was forty, balding on top. A hard man. A cop. It was his gun.

"I'm not listening to you anymore, Daddy," she said. "I'm not one of your men. You can't order me around." Her hands were shaking, but only slightly. "You were going to kill her last night, Daddy," she said.

"Charlotte , that's ridiculous," her mother said. She was thin but sturdy-looking, elegant but worn down. "Your father and I had a fight, that's all."

"You have a fight every night," Charlotte said.

"That's our business," her father said. "It doesn't concern you."

Charlotte turned the gun and fired at the lamp atop the night stand. Its ceramic base shattered and pieces flew everywhere. I took a step closer.

"It concerns me a lot," Charlotte said.

Both parents were sitting up now, leaning against the headboard. Charlotte turned the gun back on her father. "I know you don't love me," she said to him, "but you're going to love Mom. You have to love her. If you don't love her then I was just an accident like you always say."

No one said anything. The anger that was fueling her wouldn't last long. Soon it would turn to despair. Then there'd be real trouble.

"Charlotte ," I said, "you came to me because you were worried about your parents hurting each other. I told you I'd help."

"All you did was talk," she said. "Talk to my father. Pure bullshit. You used to be a cop too. You probably sat and laughed at me."

Her hair was long and straight and shiny blond. She was beautiful. Like a teen model. Only the gun made her ugly. That and her hate.

"You had no business getting involved with our family," her father said to me. "I don't know you and you don't know my daughter."

"I know she's unhappy," I said.

Charlotte 's mother had been crying ever since the gun went off. Now her crying had gotten louder.

"Betty, for Chrissake," the father said, "get a hold of yourself. This is our daughter. She isn't going to hurt us."

I wasn't so sure. But I had an idea what to do next. I took out my own gun and pointed it at him. "Do what she says," I said. "Put the handcuffs on."

We were all just shadows to one another but I could feel his contempt. "What the hell is this?" he said. "Are you banging my daughter? You son of a bitch, I'll kill you."

The mother was near-hysterical now. "Mitch, stop it," she said. Then to her daughter: "You want us to put these on, we'll put them on." She grabbed up the handcuffs and snapped one to her wrist. She reached to put the other on Mitch and he slapped her hand away.

"Betty, have you lost your mind too?" he said.

I stepped over to him and shoved the barrel of my gun up under his nose. "Do what Charlotte said."

"You son of a bitch," he said.

We all stood frozen for a moment then he snapped the cuff on his wrist and glared up at his daughter. "What now?" he said.

Charlotte thought for a moment. "Now we go to the kitchen," she said. "I'm making dinner."

She stepped off the bed and backed to the doorway. I stayed where I was. "I don't know why you're helping me," she said.

"Because I said I would."

"Then come over here," she said.

I went over and stood beside her in the doorway. I let the gun hang at my side. "Get up," she said to her parents. "We're going to have dinner together as a family."

"I don't know what's gotten into you," her father said, "but life as you know it is over. You're not hanging around with those punk friends of yours anymore. You're not even leaving the house. And you can forget about us buying you a car for your birthday next month. That's all over now. I've had it with your shit. The way you disrespect your mother and me."

Her hands were shaking again. "Daddy, if you don't get out of bed and come to the kitchen I swear to God I'll shoot you."

"Charlotte , no," her mother said. She was standing up, urging her husband to do the same. "We'll do what you want," she said. "Just please don't hurt your father."

"Hurt him?" Charlotte said. "You're worried about him? You're so pathetic, Mom."

Mitch was suddenly up out of bed and dragging his wife toward us. "You don't talk that way to your mother," he said. "Ever."

I stepped forward and hit him across the mouth with the butt of my gun. He reeled back and his wife caught him as he stumbled. Charlotte was still pointing her gun at the both of them but his advance had scared her and she didn't look in control of the situation anymore.

"She wants you in the kitchen," I said to her father. "That's where we're going. Without another word. Say anything else and I'll break your jaw. Then I'll shoot you."

He wiped blood from his busted lip. "You son of a bitch," he said. "You were never a cop."

"Mitch," his wife said, "let's just go in the kitchen and talk. That's all you really want, right, sweetie? Just to talk."

"That's all I want," Charlotte said. "For now."

We all moved together down the hall through the darkness into the kitchen. Charlotte instructed her parents to sit across from one another and I sat at the head of the table with my gun resting flat on top. I kept a hand on it and kept it pointed at her father.

"I'm going to make dinner," Charlotte said. "Everyone stay right where they are."

She went to the refrigerator and took out a family-sized microwave dinner from the freezer. Still holding the gun in her other hand she read the instructions and put the dinner in the microwave and pressed the appropriate buttons.

"I don't know what kind of hold you have on my daughter," Mitch said to me, "but I've got a lot of friends. Even if you kill me they'll get to you."

Charlotte turned from the microwave. "Daddy," she said, "you're such an asshole."

The force of the statement stunned everyone into silence and Charlotte took advantage of this. "I went to him for help," she said, "because he helps people in trouble. He listened to me. He talked to me. He had a son and a daughter and someone took them away when they were very young. He told me I shouldn't run away. He told me I should try to work things out. So that's what I'm doing."

"At gunpoint?" Mitch said.

"I'm pretty sure, Daddy, that you wouldn't listen otherwise."

"Charlotte , honey," her mother said, "that just isn't true. We always listen to you. We're always here for you."

Charlotte lifted the gun and pointed it at her mother. She waited. She watched her mother start to cry again. The words came slowly, one at a time, each carefully emphasized: "You ... don't ... listen ... at all," Charlotte said. She lowered the gun.

"We gave you everything," her father said. "We let you get away with things I'd put other people in jail for. We know you drink. We know you smoke pot. God knows who you've had sex with."

"Mitch, stop it!" her mother said. "This is our daughter."

"She's treating us like garbage, Betty. It's time she heard some truth."

Charlotte was turned away now, watching the dinner spin inside the microwave. "Daddy, no," she said softly.

"The truth is," he began, "we work our asses off for you, young lady. The shit I put up with being sheriff. So your mother and I fight. So what? Sometimes she says stupid things and I get angry. I don't need trouble at home when I've got so much of it at work. I taught you right from wrong. And your mother takes care of you. What the hell else do you want?"

The microwave began beeping and Charlotte took the dinner out. She set the table in silence and in silence she placed a portion of spaghetti before each of us. She got us drinks and sat down across from me at the far end of the table. Through it all she held the gun. And when she looked up in the darkness it was with a soft voice that she spoke. "Let's eat," she said. "Then we'll see what happens."

No one said anything. No one was eating. Except Charlotte . She patted her lips with her napkin after each bite. Then took a drink. Then ate some more. All with one hand. I could hear birds outside. The night was almost gone.

When she had finished, Charlotte wiped her face one last time then put the gun down on top of her plate. No one else had touched their food. "Now that we've had dinner," she said, "I'd like to tell you about my day. Mom, do you remember Tommy Todd? We used to play together when we were kids. He lived down the street."

"I'm sorry, dear," her mother said, "I don't remember him."

"I ran into him a few months ago at a club," Charlotte said. "I snuck into the place and I wasn't supposed to be there and it was closing. I asked Tommy for a ride back home. He took me to an alley. He raped me. He said he'd always wanted to, but I wasn't attractive enough when I was younger. After it was over, he let me leave. I walked around in a daze until dawn. Then I decided it was time to come home and tell you what had happened. But when I got here you were arguing, as usual. You didn't even know I'd been out all night. You didn't notice that my clothes were torn or that I'd been crying. So I didn't say anything. I sat down at this table and ate breakfast and got changed and went to school like nothing happened. Yesterday morning I found out I was pregnant. Yesterday afternoon I went and had an abortion. Then earlier tonight I took Daddy's gun from the drawer and went to the club and shot Tommy Todd. I came home to tell you what had happened but you were arguing again so I didn't say anything. I just went to bed. I had the gun under my pillow. I was so tired and I was passing out and then just as I was drifting off you two started again and I just couldn't take it anymore. I had to shut you the hell up. I had to make somebody in this whole stupid world love somebody else. Just to prove that it could be that way, you know? Just to prove...."

Her voice became a whisper and then faded.

We sat in silence and listened to the birds sing their songs. The sky was turning from black to blue. Suddenly Charlotte 's mother leapt up and reached across the table with one arm still handcuffed to her husband and tried to wrap Charlotte in an awkward embrace. "Oh, my poor baby," she said. "My poor, poor baby."

Charlotte didn't resist or respond to her in any way.

"Bastard deserved it," Charlotte 's father said. He stared at the tabletop and the uneaten food before him.

Charlotte lifted her eyes toward him. "That's it, Daddy? That's all you have to say? Justice is done, so you don't care about anything else?"

"What do you want me to say?" he said. "I'll see to it that you don't get in any trouble over this. I've got the connections. Though why I should go to so much trouble for a daughter like you I don't know."

Charlotte shoved her mother away and picked up the gun from her plate and pointed it at her father.

"What kind of a daughter am I?" she said.

Her mother moved toward her again and Charlotte 's father yanked her back so fiercely that she fell backwards into her chair.

"You know what I mean," he said to Charlotte .

"I do," she said. "I do know. You mean I'm an accident. You mean I'm a whore."

He kept his gaze fixed on the table and kept his body tense. He knew what was coming.

"Bastard deserved it," he said.

Charlotte started to nod her head slowly, staring off into the nothingness. "That's right, Daddy. He deserved it."

"Charlotte ," I said.

She pulled the trigger. The bullet hit her father in the chest and spun him sideways and he slid out of his chair and grabbed at the tablecloth and pulled it down and with it came all the dishes and drinks and napkins and silverware. Charlotte's mother was yanked halfway across the table with him and banged her head and started screeching and tried to pull away and stared at the wound in her husband's chest and kept on screeching some more.

I was up out of my chair and already moving towards Charlotte when she turned the gun on herself. I pushed past her mother and slapped the gun away and caught Charlotte as she fell back and held her as she went limp and lowered her to the floor and cradled her as best I could as she cried softly, almost elegantly, and the sunlight streamed in and there was nothing left for any of us to say.