The worst part of being home for the weekend is having to set the table. My mom cooks amazing meals, but every meal has to have a different silverware and different plate ware set so that way we are all prepared for dinner. I am pretty sure that my mom has OCD, but I would never say that to her or to anyone in my family.
My parents are the type of parents to say something like "You can't be depressed if God is on your side." And honestly, my mom would probably refuse to see a counselor or even takes drugs because "God doesn't want her to take things he didn't create." I am not going to argue with my parents or their religious beliefs. Yes, they may be a little obsessed with the whole religion thing, but me I don't really want to bore you with all that sort of talk.
Mom is still in the kitchen cooking, the smell of garlic dancing in the air. Xavier, my brother, and my father- who usually help me set the table, are nowhere to be seen. I am carrying the stack of plates into the dinning room from kitchen when I hear Dad's voice coming from the living room.
"I just don't understand, Xavier," Dad was saying. "In order to get a well paying job in this world, you have to go to college."
"Dad," Xavier says, you can practically hear the eye roll in his voice on the other side of the drywall between us. Dad always seems to bring up the same conversation with him whenever I come home. I can tell you now it will not end well. "I can get a well paying job right out of high school. If only you guys wouldn't restrict my computer time with that stupid Norton timer thing. I could actually work on my hobbies and show you what I'm talking about."
"This 'streamer' hobby you talk about is not a paying job," Dad argues. "There is no way for you to be able to make money by screaming at your computer late into the night. Why can't you be more like your sister? She went off to college. She's getting a degree in something that we talked about. Something she would make money doing and something she agreed she might be happy doing for the rest of her life."
It is quiet for a moment and then the sound of Xavier's footsteps echo in the kitchen. I gently set down the plate that I didn't realize I had hovering over the placemat. He rummages around in a drawer causing the tinkling sound of silverware. His chocolate brown skater boy head peaks around the doorway and gives me a sheepish grin. Xavier jerks his head to the side flicking his hair out of his eyes just like Justin Bieber used to do. I give him a small apologetic smile. His boney shoulders shrug and he slaunters into the dining room.
"You okay?" I ask him quietly.
Xavier shrugs again and answers with an eye roll. Yeah. He starts to lay out the silverware beside the plates I had laid out. I don't understand why they are so harsh on him. They always told us we could be whatever we wanted to be, but now that Xavier is old enough to have his own opinion and develop his own hobbies and interests that our parents didn't get him started in, it is almost like it is a sin.
"Ted, our children are doing their best to be who we have encouraged them to be. Let him take his SATs like he wants and then he can choose a college," Mom says in a hushed tone. "Don't try to argue with me about it. We should encourage them instead of shame them for the things they are interested in."
That's when she appears in the dining room doorway. She gives me a big smile before crossing the room and placing a pasta dish in the center of the table. Mom was one of the best cooks that I have ever met. She had cooked some sort of pasta dish for us, but from the looks of it there weren't any actual noodles in the dish. The noodles however looked like freshly cut vegetables- zucchini, squash, cucumbers, peas, bell peppers, everything covered in Mom's famous white sauce. Dad enters the room and Xavier nor him acknowledges the other. We pass our plates in silence as Mom fills the plates.
