My Secret to Keep

Family Lunch

Griffin dragged his fork through the gravy. The rich, brown sauce and tender meat tasted just as good as he remembered. Better even, considering his diet for the last few years consisted of foods that tasted like cardboard and kale. He would've enjoyed the meal more if his sister wasn't trying to murder him with her eyeballs from across the table.

"So, Griffin, when do you start filming?"

Nana's voice was sweet with the slightest tremor, and it washed over him like warm comfort. He'd worried she would treat him differently because of the years spent raising Starling, but her arms had opened as wide as always the moment she saw him.

"Probably not until around Christmas. Pre-production should be complete by then."

"Then why are you here already?"

Griffin chewed on the large piece of roast and tried to formulate a sentence that wasn't laced with malevolence. His outburst in the kitchen the day he arrived was out of character for him, despite what the tabloids might like to report. The hurtful words he'd said about Star's weight couldn't be recalled, only forgiven, and he didn't want to continue adding to the list of things he wished his sister would forgive.

"To go to school. Like I said the day I got here."

"Yeah, well you said a lot of things that day," she snipped, making him groan inwardly.

"I don't remember you being too quiet that day either."

They glared across the table at one another. He broke eye contact first, but only to grab his sweet tea, the glass sweating heavily in the humidity, and lift it to his smirking mouth.

"Mmm, I've missed your tea and cooking, Nana," he said, smacking his lips and looking at Starling's glass of water. "It's a shame Starling doesn't appreciate it."

His sister stabbed a wilted piece of lettuce. A small sliver of roast sat on her plate, wiped clean of the decadent gravy. She'd not eaten any of the soft, red potatoes, opting for the baby carrots instead. Her glass was filled to the brim with water, and she'd squeezed at least three lemons into the liquid.

"Is that another fat joke?" she demanded.

Griffin winced. Not ten seconds after he'd convinced himself he was an ass for making fun of her weight, he'd gone and done it again. Perhaps more subtly than before, but for a person like Starling, whose insecurities could twist every word into poison, it was enough.

He scrubbed a hand over his face and whispered a prayer for patience. And added on a bit about asking the good man upstairs to help his sister see what everyone else saw when they looked at her. How he wished he knew the point she started hating the girl in the mirror or what had triggered that loathing. He'd go back and stop it if he could.

"I want you two to listen to me and listen good." The authority in Nana's voice cracked between the siblings, jerking their spines straighter and turning their eyes to her. "While you two are in my home, you are going to speak to one another with love and respect. Is that understood?"

"But Nana," Starling protested.

"But nothing, Starling Elizabeth. I don't know what happened between you two, but nothing should be so big or so bad that it keeps you from loving one another."

The remainder of the meal was quiet, and when Nana pushed away from the table, asking them to do the dishes so she could take a nap, neither of them objected. But the moment their grandmother was gone, Starling stood up, snatched a handful of dishes off the plate and stormed to the kitchen.

Griffin gathered the few items she'd left behind and followed her. She didn't look at him when he dropped the dishes into the sink, or when he opened the dishwasher and began to load it with the dishes she'd already rinsed.