I would pull my hand away, hide in the downstairs bathroom, run cold water over the burn, wrap it in a dish towel, and return before anyone needed another drink.
I would apologize for upsetting the guests.
I would clean the broken plate beside the grill.
I would make an excuse for him before anyone could ask what they had just witnessed.
For ten years, I had cleaned up whatever Ivan broke and protected him from every consequence.
That afternoon, he finally broke the part of me that had kept doing it.
The barbecue had been Ivan’s idea.
He had called it a family celebration, but almost every person in our backyard belonged to his world.
There were executives from Vanguard Development, wealthy neighbors who compared vacation homes over drinks, two of Ivan’s golf partners, and several women who praised my garden while handing me their empty plates without looking at my face.
