We settle on the weather. I’m not sure who brings it up first, but we both latch on to it.

“I think we’re going to get some rain this weekend.”

“It’s pretty cold out.”

“Summer’s probably coming late.”

“I’ll be glad when it warms up.”

Brilliant.

Inside Sweethaven Café, the scent of thirty years of burnt coffee, bacon grease, and cigarette smoke greet us. Michelle Lovell hasn’t allowed smoking in the café in years, but the stench lingers though people no longer tap their ashes into ashtrays. If it wasn’t our only option for a night out in town, I’m not sure anyone would come here.

Veronica Lovell greets us at the hostess station, her nutmeg hair twisted back with a clip, a once-white apron tied around her waist. She graduated last year. We’d been friends, but I haven’t seen much of her since she left for college in August. She’d managed a hefty scholarship with her grades, as her mom, Michelle, had proudly told everyone who walked into the café last year. Last I heard, she was living in Boston.

She surprises me with a smile and a hug when she sees me. “Hey, Q.”

I hug her back a little tighter than I should. She’s genuinely happy to see me, and I wonder if the gossip has somehow bypassed her. “Hey, Ronnie. What’re you doing back here?”

Her nose wrinkles, folding her freckles together, and she leads us to a booth. “I’m taking a semester off. Dad broke his leg, and he and Mom needed me home to help out.”

Her father is cook, while her mom runs the front. Without help, her parents could easily lose the café.

I touch her elbow. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

She shrugs and brushes away her brown bangs with her forearm. “What’re you gonna do?”

My father and I slide into opposite sides of the booth, and Ronnie hands us menus. Before she leaves, she says, “Not a lot of vegetarian options on the menu, Q, but I’ll see if my mom can throw together some veggies and pasta for you.”

“That’d be great. Thanks, Ronnie.”

The diner is busy tonight, and I open the menu to escape the eyes I feel eating us up.

“What was that about?” my father asks. He nods toward Ronnie and adds, “The vegetarian thing.”

Uncomfortable, I shift in my seat, tucking a leg underneath me. “I don’t eat meat.”

My father sits on his side of the booth, and nothing about him looks relaxed. Perfect posture, perfect regulation hair, perfect record, imperfect daughter. I’m the weight throwing his life out of balance.

For so long, he avoided looking at me. Now, he stares like I’m an alien being. Someone replaced his perfect daughter with this thing I’ve become, and he doesn’t know how it happened or what to do with me.

“Since when?” Skepticism rounds out the question.

Squaring my shoulders, I say, “Since we took a field trip to that farm.”

I’m not sure who’s bright idea that trip had been, but one look at the chicken slaughterhouse had pretty much decided it for me. Carey had teased me for weeks.

Ronnie drops a basket of bread on the table and walks away in a hurry when my father frowns at her.

“That was more than a year ago,” he says.

“Yes, sir.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

He sounds angry, and I toy with a breadstick from the basket. Because I kept waiting for you to see me. “How could you not notice?”

It’s the closest I’ve come to disrespecting him. His wintergreen eyes narrow, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I am saved by Ronnie returning to take our order. A salad and the pasta for me, and a burger for him.

He crosses his arms over his chest. The way he’s focused on me is disconcerting after having been ignored for so long. It’s a struggle to keep myself from fidgeting. Finally he says, “I really don’t know you anymore, do I?”

I can’t be sure, but I think he sounds a little sad. “I didn’t think you wanted to. Not after . . .”

I can’t say Carey’s name. His name has this power now to kill the joy in any room. What if saying it reminds my father to hate me?

He’s silent, and I’m disappointed. At least he doesn’t lie and deny the truth, though. Our food arrives and it could be any other night at our kitchen table. He asks me about my homework and school, and I give my usual answers of “Done” and “Fine.” I peer at my plate to avoid the curious stares I imagine.

When my plate is clean, I wipe my mouth with a napkin and catch my father eyeing my empty plate. His lip curls in a small smile.

“That’s the most I’ve seen you eat in months. I guess now I know why.”

Humor laces his tone, and I can’t hide my shock.

He props an arm over the back of the booth. “You could’ve told me, you know. I wouldn’t have forced a steak into you.”

I take a chance on his lighter mood. “But then Rueger wouldn’t be so fat and happy.”

His eyes widen as he makes the connection between the dog’s round body and my half-eaten dinners. I wait for the anger to resurface, but he surprises me again by laughing.

“Carl’s had him on a diet for weeks,” he says. “He can’t understand why Rueger’s gaining weight.”

He laughs again, and I join in. How long can this last, the two of us getting along? Especially once the blame starts flowing again. What if this cease-fire makes it more painful to withstand the next battle? I sober up. I’m not sure I can handle that.