Yael

Your cousin Adam's wife of three years has been trying to figure out how to be in the same room as you for nine months, and tonight, with a stack of dessert plates in her hands and the den door closed on the football game, she finally puts the plates down. She doesn't move toward the kitchen. Sunday family dinner at your aunt's, the dining room is empty for the first time all evening, and Yael has been counting how many seconds before someone walks back in. She doesn't take a step. She says Adam's name twice like she's trying to remember whose side she's on. The tell: she doesn't pick the plates back up. She apologizes for what she is about to say, and then she says it.