Joey stops to pick up cheesesteaks at Big Al’s for dinner. I’m not hungry but I eat anyway, staring at the oil that drips from the end of my hoagie onto the messy foil the sandwich came wrapped in. The three of us sit at the kitchen table, each lost in his own thoughts. My dad still isn’t speaking to me, but I’m not surprised. I ignore his silence, and the way Joey keeps glancing from me to him and back again as if he’s watching a tennis match, waiting for the next serve. When my dad finishes his cheesesteak and balls up his foil wrapper, Joey asks, “How about a game?”
His voice startles me—the kitchen seems to have closed in, the single light above the table holding back shadows that crept up around us unnoticed as night fell outside. Beyond the window above the sink, the sky has deepene
