CHAPTER TWO

Dinner was rather silent that evening. Tegwen sat there, listening carefully to the sounds of the flatware scraping across the fine china. Occasionally she'd glance up at her parents and see that both of them were avoiding each other's stares. The uncomfortable silence became too much for Tegwen to bear and her stomach was in knots. She finally gave up as her mother offered her the gefilte fish again.

Tegwen swallowed the anxiety in her throat. "May I please be excused?" She whispered to either of the adults at the table. "I'm not feeling well and I'd like to go to sleep early tonight."

"But it's only eight o'clock!" Beitiris protested sadly.

"Let her go!" Giffen snapped. "If she doesn't want to eat, don't make her sit here with us."

Tegwen shrunk in her chair. "It's okay . . ."

Giffen turned to her. "If you're not feeling well, why don't you go lay down? You need to rest."

"Thank you." She hugged him quickly and gave her mother a quick peck on her cheek before quickly excusing herself to the safety of her bedroom.

- - -

Tegwen found herself suddenly staring at the ceiling shortly after 10:55 that night. I was just sleeping all of five minutes ago, she rationalized with herself silently. What's the matter with me? I didn't have a nightmare and my alarm wasn't set to go off at this time . . . Heaving a sigh, Tegwen left her bed and threw on her robe, deciding to go get a midnight snack to make up for her less-than-filling dinner.

At the top of the stairs, Tegwen caught the quiet voices drifting up from the family room.

"I can't believe you didn't back me up tonight, Giffen," Beitiris said, punctuating her comment with a short sniffle. "We're supposed to be on the same team, here, and it's hard to make decisions if you completely disregard anything I say!"

"Oh, please, Bee, don't start crying," Giffen replied, his quiet voice lagging with remorse.

Tegwen tiptoed down half the flight of stairs and seated herself at the railing, peering between the wooden posts into the family room.

In the dim light of the table lamp beside the tan leather loveseat, Tegwen could see her parents clearly. Mascara had streaked down her mother's cheekfeathers, a clear sign that she had been crying for a while already. Her father wore a frown through all this, his normally jovial eyes particularly sad at the moment and extremely tired. Worse than that, they were both still dressed as they had been at the dinner table and Tegwen deduced that neither had been to bed yet that evening.



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