Meghan returns to the table and portions half the salad onto Katie’s plate, the other half onto hers, and then dumps the empty bowl into the sink. Meanwhile Joe works at cutting his roast beef with the same level of effort a lumberjack might use to saw through a tree. He finally frees a piece and watches his girls happily crunching on their salads as he chews on a salty roof shingle.
“You know, the farmers who grew that lettuce and cucumber probably used fertilizer,” says Joe, wearing the straightest expression he’s got.
Katie and Meghan ignore him, but JJ cracks a smile, knowing where this is going.
“I’m no farmer, but I think they use cow manure for fertilizer, don’t they, JJ?”
“Yup, they sure do,” says JJ, who has never stepped foot in a garden or on a farm in his life.
“Stop,” says Meghan.
“The lettuce and cucumber seeds use nutrients from the cow manure to grow. So basically, if you do the math, that salad you’re eating is made of cow shit.”
“Gross, Dad. Really gross,” says Katie.
“I’d rather eat the cow than the cow’s shit, wouldn’t you, JJ?”
JJ and Joe have a good laugh. For many reasons, the women in the room are not amused.
“Okay, that’s enough,” says Rosie, who would normally find Joe’s teasing at least good-natured. She doesn’t understand the whole vegan thing either. But he knows that she’s still fuming about Patrick’s unknown whereabouts and is too distracted by his absence to think anything is funny. “Can we please talk about something other than shit?”
“I have the dates for Coppélia,” says Meghan. “It runs August tenth to the twenty-fourth.”
“Me and Colleen are going on the first Friday,” says JJ.
“Colleen and I,” says Rosie. “That works for me. Katie?”
“Uh, I’m not sure yet. I might have plans.”
“Doing what?” asks Meghan in a dismissive tone that Joe knows Katie will find offensive.
“None of your business,” says Katie.
“Lemme guess. Ironsides with Andrea and Micaela.”
“My Friday nights are just as important as yours. The whole world doesn’t revolve around you.”
“Girls,” warns Rosie.
Growing up, Katie was Meghan’s dutiful shadow. As Joe remembers it, he and Rosie always parented them as a single unit. Except when it came to dance, Joe and Rosie referred to the girls together so often, their individual names seemed to blur into a single third moniker. Meg-an-Katie, come here. Meg-an-Katie are going to the parade. Meg-an-Katie, time for supper.
But since high school, the girls have been drifting apart. Joe can’t put his finger on exactly why. Meghan’s so consumed with her rigorous ballet schedule; even though the girls live together, she’s not around much. Katie could be feeling left behind. Or jealous. They all do make a pretty big deal over Meg. Joe listens politely whenever other parents in Town brag about their daughter who works at the library or the MBTA or who just got married. He beams when they’re done, when it’s finally his turn. MY daughter dances for the Boston Ballet. No other parent from Town can top that. He realizes just now that he doesn’t mention anything about his other daughter.
Katie teaches yoga, which Joe will admit he knows virtually nothing about except that it’s today’s latest fitness craze, like Zumba or Tae Bo or CrossFit but dressed in a New Age, hippy-dippy, cultlike kind of following. He thinks it’s wonderful she’s doing something she enjoys, but Joe can tell she’s dissatisfied. He’s not sure whether it’s with yoga or all the attention they give Meghan or a boyfriend Joe doesn’t know about, but there’s a tension in the posture of Katie’s voice that seems to be squeezing tighter each week, a chip on her shoulder that she wears like a favorite accessory. She was such an easygoing kid. His baby girl. Whatever’s going on, he assumes it’s just a phase. She’ll work it out.
“Dad?” asks Meghan. “Are you coming?”
Joe loves watching Meghan dance, and he’s not ashamed to admit that it always makes him cry. Most little girls say they want to be a ballerina, but it’s a wish in the same category as wanting to be a fairy princess, a whimsical fantasy and not a real career goal. But when Meghan said at the age of four that she wanted to be a ballerina, they all believed her.
She began with lessons at the local dance studio and then entered the free Citydance program when she was in the third grade. She was focused and tenacious from the start. She received a scholarship for the Boston Ballet School when she was thirteen and was offered a contract in the corps de ballet when she graduated high school.
Meghan works hard, harder than any of them probably, but Joe also believes that she was born to dance. The stunning beauty of those spins, whatever they’re called, the impossibility of how high she holds one leg in the air while the rest of her is balanced on one big toe. He can’t even touch his toes. Meghan has Joe’s eyes, but thank God that’s about it. The rest of her comes from Rosie or is a gift straight from God.
He missed The Nutcracker this year. He’d seen her in it many times before, although not in this role in the Boston Ballet, Meghan would be quick to point out. And he got called in for an evening shift when he was supposed to see The Sleeping Beauty in April. He knows he’s disappointed her. It’s one of the worst things about his job, missing out on Christmas mornings and birthdays and his kid’s Little League championship game and every Fourth of July and too many of Meghan’s dance recitals.
“I’ll be there,” says Joe.
He’ll work it out. Meghan smiles. Bless her for still believing in him.
“Where’s the water?” asks Rosie.
Joe spots the water pitcher on the counter.
“I got it,” he says.
The pitcher is heavy, real crystal, probably one of the most expensive things they own if Joe had to guess. It was a wedding gift from Rosie’s parents, and Rosie fills it with water, beer, or spiked iced tea, depending on the occasion, every Sunday.
Joe fills the pitcher at the sink, returns to the table, and, still standing, requests everyone’s jelly jar one at a time, ladies first. He’s pouring water into Katie’s glass when he somehow loses hold of the handle, midair, midpour. The pitcher drops, knocking Katie’s glass out of his other hand, and both hit the table, instantly shattering into hundreds of the tiniest pebbles of glass. Meghan screams and Rosie gasps, her hand over her mouth.
“It’s okay. Everyone’s okay,” says JJ.
His right hand stuck in place as if still holding the pitcher, Joe assesses the damage. The pitcher is destroyed beyond recognition. Everything on the table is wet and seasoned with crumbs of glass. He finally unfreezes and rubs his fingers and thumb against the palm of his hand, expecting them to feel greasy or wet, but they’re clean and dry. He stares at his hand as if it doesn’t belong to him and wonders what the hell just happened.
“Sorry, Rosie,” says Joe.