The Table

Then he told it again.

“The light in the Pantheon,” David said, gesturing with his fork. “It hits the floor at noon…”

Cotton watched Jasmin. Jasmin wasn’t eating. She was watching her father’s hands.

“You told us, Dad,” Eli said, staring at his plate.

“Did I?” David blinked. He looked at Cotton. “Have you been to Rome?”

“No,” Cotton said.

“You must go,” David said. “The light in the Pantheon…”

He trailed off. He looked at the fork in his hand like he didn’t know how it got there.

The silence at the table was thick, suffocating. It wasn’t the holy silence of a cathedral. It was the terrified silence of a family watching their foundation crumble.

Cotton felt a kick under the table.

She looked at Jasmin.

Jasmin’s eyes were wet. Help me, they said.

Cotton cleared her throat.

“I haven’t been to Rome,” Cotton said, her voice steady. “But I read your article on phenomenology. The one about memory as a terrain.”

David looked at her. The fog in his eyes cleared, just a fraction.

“Memory,” he repeated. “Yes. A terrain. Not a library. You can’t index it. You have to walk it.”

“Exactly,” Cotton said. “You wrote that we lose the map before we lose the territory.”

David smiled. It wasn’t the practiced smile. It was real.

“Smart girl,” he said. “Jasmin, keep this one.”