"Commercial, mostly. Walk-ins, reach-ins, ice machines. Some residential when people ask."
"How useful." She said it warmly. I want to be fair to her. She said it the way you'd say it about a Swiss Army knife. "We have a cottage up near Petoskey, and the refrigerator there is an absolute tyrant. Graham, isn't it?"
"Hmm?" said Graham.
"The cottage refrigerator."
"Oh, a beast," said Graham, without looking up. "Should we do the Barolo? Or is that too heavy for fish?"
"Dad's semi-retired now," Margot said quickly. "He's thinking about traveling."
I wasn't thinking about traveling. I'd never said a word about traveling. I looked at her and she looked at her menu.
"How wonderful," said Philippa. "Where?"
"Oh," I said. "Here and there."
"He's always wanted to see Portugal," said Margot.
I have never once in my life thought about Portugal. I think Margot had a colleague who went to Portugal. I let it go.
That was how most of the first hour went. Philippa asked questions and I began to answer them, and Margot finished my answers for me, rounding off the corners. When Philippa asked where I'd grown up, I said Slavic Village, and Margot said, "It's actually really up-and-coming now." When Philippa asked whether Margot's mother had worked, I said Gloria was a dental hygienist for nineteen years, and Margot said, "She was amazing with people. Everybody loved her," which was true, but she said it the way you'd add a caption under a photograph to make sure nobody misunderstood it.
I didn't blame her. I want that on the record, too. I watched my daughter sit very straight in a dress that I'd guess cost four hundred dollars and steer a conversation like a woman driving on ice, and what I felt wasn't anger. It was something closer to watching her take her driver's test. I wanted her to pass. I just wished she hadn't been taking it on me.
Peter, for his part, kept trying to get me talking. He asked how business was. He asked about the hardest job I'd ever done. Each time, I'd start, and each time, I'd feel Margot's knee go still against mine under the table, and I'd wrap it up.
When the food came, I ordered the roast chicken because it was the cheapest thing on the menu and because I like roast chicken. Graham ordered the halibut and Philippa ordered something with scallops and a foam, and when the plates arrived Margot took out her phone.