The Dinner Guest

• Paige Martin, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2021

Mother greeted me holding a knife in her hand. “Maxon!” she said. “You’re back.”

“Hello, Mother.” I kissed her cold cheek, angling my body away from the knife.

“Come in, darling, I just finished cooking dinner.”

She stepped aside, allowing me to enter the house that had haunted my childhood. Not even four years away at university had lessened my uneasiness at the house’s strange, metallic smell and the dimly-lit corridors.

“You really need to let me trim your hair,” she said, raising a disapproving eyebrow. She had been nagging me about it since my return three days ago. I wanted to tell her I preferred my hair long, but she would be upset. I should just let her cut it. As I entered the dining room the acrid smell of cooked meat wafted over me. My stomach churned. Mother must be experimenting in the kitchen again. The candles on the table flickered, making the shadows dance and the room pulsate. Father, sitting at the head of the table, hurriedly shifted a seat to the right when he glimpsed Mother. Mother sat in the seat Father had abandoned.

“Good evening, Father,” I said to the empty shell of a man Mother had broken long ago.

“Son,” he mumbled into his nearly empty glass of wine.

“Is Sarah joining us for dinner?” I asked Mother. This morning, before I’d managed to escape the house, I had spotted Mother talking to a beautiful woman. When I’d asked Mother about her, she’d explained that the woman – Sarah – had been boarding in the guest room for about a week. I wanted to find out more about her, but Mother had that same flinty-eyed look and rigid stance she’d had when she’d discovered my junior high crush on a classmate. That had ended with me moving to a different school a week later.

“Why are you so interested in Sarah?” Mother’s amber eyes, identical to my own, sharpened.

“I’m not,” I said, backtracking in an attempt to placate her. “You’re the only woman in my life.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way.” Mother smiled tightly and then abruptly changed the subject. “Why aren’t you eating?”

I looked down at the unappetising slab of meat on my plate. Mother was watching me, a smile fixed to her patrician face. Crimson bits of her meal were stuck in her teeth. Hesitantly, I cut into the tough meat and took a bite. The taste was unusual … bitter. “What meat is this?” I asked, swallowing with difficulty.

“It’s a … rare meat.”

Father laughed bleakly into his wine glass. “Very rare.”

Mother glared at him. “Aren’t you going to eat more?” she asked me. Her empty plate reflected the light of the chandelier above her.

“I’m waiting for Sarah to join us,” I said. Anything to delay having to finish Mother’s experimental meal.

“Sarah?” Father looked down at the meat left on his plate. “She’s right here.”