WRONG NUMBER | NIKI

27 - The Last Seat at the Table

HANA'S POV

The break begins three days later, and for the first time in what feels like forever, I don't wake up with the immediate sensation that I am carrying something too heavy for my own body. The truth about my father is still there, of course, tucked somewhere deep inside me, but it no longer feels like a wound I have to keep touching just to make sure it is real. If anything, it has done something strange to me. It has made me softer in places I didn't know were still capable of softness. 

I notice my father differently now. The way he waits for my mother before getting into the car. The way he still knocks on my bedroom door even though he could easily walk in. The way he asks whether I've eaten when he already knows the answer. 

Little things that used to disappear into the background of my life have suddenly become enormous. Maybe that is what happens when you learn how close you came to never having someone at all. You begin to understand the weight of every ordinary day they chose to stay.

So when my mother tells me we're going to my grandfather's estate for dinner, I expect the old anxiety to return. I expect the gates to feel like a warning, the house to feel like a judgment, and every room to remind me of all the ways I have spent my life trying to earn a place I apparently never needed to earn in the first place. 

Instead, when we arrive, I feel strangely calm. The house looks exactly the same, grand and imposing beneath the late afternoon sky, the gardens manicured so perfectly they barely look alive, but something inside me has changed enough that it no longer feels as though the building itself has the power to decide who I am. 

My father parks the car, comes around to open my mother's door, and then looks at me over the roof of the car. "Ready, sweetheart?" He asks. The word hits me somewhere unexpectedly tender. 

I smile. "Ready." He smiles back, and for a second, before we walk inside, I realize that I am not afraid anymore.

Everyone is already there. My uncles are gathered around the sitting room, and the familiar sound of conversation follows us as we enter. Aera is sitting beside her parents, perfectly dressed as always, her posture flawless, her expression composed until her eyes land on me. I see the exact moment she notices something is different. Her gaze moves from me to my father, then back to me, lingering as though she is trying to understand a change she cannot name. 

I don't blame her. A week ago, I would have walked into this house already bracing myself for whatever she might say. Today, I walk in beside my father with my shoulders relaxed and my head held high, and perhaps that is what confuses her most. She studies me for another second before looking away, but I catch the tiny crease between her eyebrows. She knows something happened. She just doesn't know what.

Dinner begins almost peacefully, which in my family usually means everyone is simply waiting for the first opportunity to make it otherwise. Plates are passed around, my grandfather sits at the head of the table, and conversations overlap as everyone talks about university, plans for the break, family friends and everything else that feels important enough to discuss over expensive food. 

I sit beside my father, and for once I don't feel like I need to monitor every word that leaves my mouth. My mother occasionally catches my eye, and there is something warm in her expression that makes me think she is feeling the same thing I am. We are carrying a secret that no longer feels like a secret between us. We know something about our family now that we didn't know before, and somehow it has brought us closer rather than tearing us apart.

It is Aera, predictably, who finally turns the conversation toward me. "So, Hana," She says, setting down her fork with deliberate elegance, "how did your exams go?" The question sounds innocent enough, but I know her too well to believe it is. She isn't asking because she cares. She is asking because she wants to know whether there is anything she can use.