“Lucy. Look at me. Lucy.”
My sister Vanessa didn’t move.
Everyone else did. My mother lunged forward. Guests yanked their kids back like the floor was on fire. Someone was already shouting into a phone, 911, my address, hurry. Vanessa stood by the glass lemonade dispenser with her hands folded, still as a photograph.
Then her mouth curved. Just slightly. Just enough.
“Allison. Don’t turn this into another emergency before we even know what’s wrong. Kids get tired at parties.”
I’d heard some version of that line for eighteen months.
You see threats everywhere. The Army wired you to distrust everyone. You go cold and controlling the second someone disagrees with you.
I’d gotten it every time I asked about Whitaker Foodservice Supply — the company our grandfather Charles built out of one Richmond warehouse into six states of restaurant and school-cafeteria contracts. After he died, the trust split ownership three ways: my mother, Vanessa, me. I was still in uniform, so Vanessa and her husband, Colin Doyle, ran the place day to day.
