Counting Under the Tablecloth

my mother has one story she tells at every dinner where there's more than four people at the table, the one about the summer i wouldn't speak to her, and in her version i was fourteen and cruel for no reason while she was patient and worried and did nothing wrong. she was not patient. i was not fourteen for no reason. but by the time she gets to the part where she cried in the car, everyone at the table is already looking at me like i owe her something.

tonight it was my cousin's engagement dinner, eleven people, the good tablecloth. she got to the crying in the car part and i put my hand under the cloth and folded down a finger. six. six times this year i've sat somewhere with cloth napkins and listened to a version of myself i don't recognize get quietly agreed with by a table full of people who love me.

i could say it wasn't like that. i've had the sentence ready for eleven years, short, calm, true. i watched my aunt reach over and pat my mother's hand like she was the one who needed comforting, and i picked up my water glass instead.

i don't know what number i'm counting to. i don't know what happens when i get there.