Stuffed Read Free

said.
    â€œCould you two stop it?” I said, cutting them both off before they could continue.
    My father looked surprised by my outburst. “We’re having a friendly debate.”
    â€œYes, a healthy exchange of ideas,” my mother added.
    â€œNo, you’re not. You’re holding a full trial. All you need is a judge and a jury to deliver a verdict.”
    â€œA judge,” my father said. “That would be a good thing.” He looked at my mother and then they both looked at me and smiled.
    â€œI’m not being the judge,” I said, figuring out what he had in mind.
    â€œWhy not?” my father asked. “We trust your judgment and you heard our arguments.”
    â€œI heard
some
of what you both said. I drifted off a couple of times.”
    â€œEven better,” my father said.
    â€œHow can that be better?”
    â€œHalf the judges I’ve ever appeared before fell asleep on the bench.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter. I’m not giving a verdict here. Couldn’t we have the occasional supper conversation that didn’t end up as a trial?”
    My mother got up from the table and started to help my father clear the dishes. “I guess us having these discussions is an occupational hazard. If you had two parents who were doctors instead of lawyers, we’d be talking medicine.”
    â€œActually, if we were both doctors you wouldn’t even
be
here,” my father said.
    â€œHe has a point, Ian.”
    My parents had met in a courtroom. He was the lawyer for one side and she was the lawyer for the other side. They started fighting there in the court, continued fighting afterward when they went for a friendly drink and didn’t stop until they were married six months later. They went on to form a partnership—Cheevers and Cheevers. Now they were just about the best-known—and feared—trial lawyers in the city.
    â€œDo you want to wash or dry?” my mother asked.
    â€œI’ll do whatever you want,” my father answered.
    She slipped her arm around his waist and gave him a kiss on the cheek. People who didn’t know them and heard them arguing with each other would have thought they hated each other. They didn’t. They were almost sickeningly in love. Twenty-seven years of marriage and four kids later they still held hands and giggled at each other’s bad jokes.
    I got up and cleared my dishes away. “It would be nice to just have a normal family discussion over dinner sometimes,” I said.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” my father asked.
    â€œYou know, talking about what’s on TV, or a movie, or what I did at school today.”
    â€œWhat
did
you do at school today?” my mother asked.
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œThanks for sharing that,” my father joked.
    â€œWe could just talk. Especially whenwe have someone over for dinner. It can be confusing for them.”
    â€œJulia never seems to mind,” my father said. “I think she enjoys our discussions.”
    â€œJulia likes arguing even more than the two of you do,” I said.
    â€œShe does enjoy a good discussion. That girl would make one fine lawyer.”
    That was just about the biggest compliment my father could ever give. My not wanting to follow in the family tradition bothered them, even if they didn’t say much about it.
    â€œSpeaking of Julia, we haven’t seen much of her lately. It’s been weeks since she joined us for dinner,” my mother said.
    â€œI think she’s at Oswald’s tonight.”
    â€œOswald’s? We haven’t seen as much of him lately either,” my mother said. “It wasn’t because of something we said, was it?”
    I shook my head. “Actually it was something Oswald said to Julia. He said, ‘Do you want to go to a movie, and do you want to be my girlfriend?’”
    â€œJulia and Oswald are dating?” my mother questioned.
    â€œI guess