It is nothing less than a home out of House and Garden. A stalwart figure, his sister Sarah greets us from the porch wearing a Scottish wool sweater and faded blue jeans that sit snug at her waist. Her straight salt and pepper hair is neat and parted to one side. Although it is windy, not one strand strays from its place. I don't need to walk into the house; she is the epitome of control. Her lips aren't even chapped. All smiles, she says, "Enter through the mudroom, we just redid the floors."

What is a mudroom?

Kicking aside various dress shoes, hiking boots and sneakers that are neatly arranged by size and sex (black penny loafers and powder blue track shoes to the left, rigid hiking boots to the right), I drop my stilettos. The collecting of the coats is a grand affair as poor Joel tries to hang them in the nearest closet (as normal people do), but Sarah scolds, "Den closet, Joel. This is for the ski jackets and fleece jumpers."

Although it is past eleven in the evening Sarah leads us to the kitchen. A tour guide, she opens and closes the Viking oven; she demonstrates how she has her flatware arranged by size and proper place setting. A central island boasts a hidden refrigerator and dozens of sliding compartments for cooking sheets, measuring cups, graters, peelers, slicers, and other gastronomic whatnots. On the island sits our dinner, chicken in bearnaise sauce and fluffy rice pilaf. Peas, carrots and string beans huddle next to the rice. Standing in a cheap black lycra dress that is tight on all the wrong places, I feel foreign in all this decor. I long for a sweater, anything to cover myself. To fit in.

Sarah points to the kitchen counter. A bottle of Diet Coke, a carafe of red wine and a Brita filter stand tall. "I didn't know what you'd like," she says. "And no worries, we have plenty of options. Papaya juice? Mineral water?"

Masticating his chicken, Joel mumbles that water would be fine.

Refusing to speak, I walk over to the counter and bring the carafe of wine back with me and pour a glass.

"Gillian, please," Joel says.

"Sorry, it's hard to talk with the knife twisting in my back."

Ignoring us, Sarah rattles off our agenda for the following day. After an exhilarating morning of reorganizing the attic bookshelves we will be treated with polishing the silverware, and after a delectable lunch, the cat, L.D. will need to be walked. I inquire about my sleeping arrangements to learn that we have been sequestered to the attic bedroom. Winking, Sarah says, "The honeymoon suite."

I thought only fiction invented people such as Sarah.

With a large yawn, she walks up the stairs. Joel turns to me and says, "My parents arrive in the morning."

* * *

We sit upright in bed; blankets create a small mountain at our feet. The tuck-tuck of the wall clock interrupts the long silence. With my toes, I create imaginary zeroes on the mattress. Glancing over at Joel, his lips peeled down to a frown, I regret my pinched tone in the kitchen. Perhaps the trip home won't be so bad. Maybe we'll all sit around the table, elbows prodding ribs, glass chinking in celebratory laughter. This family could be different than my own. Holidays won't always equal medieval torture. Joel, say something.

Shaking his head, he says, "This is how it starts."

"She's not that...bad," I say.

But Joel appears to ignore me, choosing to mumble to himself that it will only get worse, that he shouldn't have come. That this, this trip home, is terribly, terribly wrong.

I lay my hand on his arm.

"We shouldn't have come," Joel says.

* * *

"Kelleher? That's not a Jewish name," his mother Evelyn says over pear French toast and eggs benedict. Decked in denim overalls and pearls, she eats with her mouth wide open. Joel's father Jonathan pushes food around on this plate.

"That's because it's not Jewish, Evelyn," Joel says. Bitter, he moves his food about his plate. With the tines of his fork, he crushes bits of pear.

"It's only a simple question. No need to get all huffy about it."

"Breakfast wouldn't be complete if you didn't find some way to make someone uncomfortable," Joel says, dropping his fork. The clang of the silver against the plate echoes.

Evelyn turns to me and giggles. "You're going to be my daughter and I don't even know you."

Under the table, I twist my napkin.

From the adjoining kitchen, Sarah says, "Tell us about your family."

"They're divorced. My father is dating a woman named Minnie and although my mother is remarried, she is bitter about it. My brother Edmund has his own cooking show on the Food Network."

"Edmund Kelleher is your brother?" Turning to Evelyn, she says, "That's the cute gay chef on Sunday nights."

"He's not gay," I seethe.

Joel develops a fixation with his plate, his head doesn't rise once.

Sarah stands with a tray piled high with more toast. Using tongs, she doles out plump portions on everyone's plates.

I sniff the toast and push it away.

"What's wrong," she asks. Leaning over, her heart thumps through her L.L. Bean crewneck. Sarah smells of hyacinths and soap.

Evelyn compliments her daughter on the radiant heat floors. "It's so toasty in here!" she says, rubbing her hands together as if she'd start a fire.

"Siberia is balmy compared to the damn bathrooms. I don't feel toasty in there," his father Jonathan mumbles, cutting his eggs into tiny bites.

"I have issues with eggs," I say.

"Gillian is allergic," Joel adds.

"No, I hate them."

"But this is French toast," Sarah says, tapping the tongs on the Dutch maple table.

"And French toast is made with eggs." Pulling apart a hot biscuit, I slather on a thick layer of apricot jam. "See the bits of yellow crust hanging off the sides? That's yolk."

"Goddamn money pit," Jonathan says. Once he is satisfied with his eggs cut small enough, he rests his utensils on the table. A folded Wall Street Journal sits beside him. "All I read is the Journal and the dictionary. My bibles," he says to no one in particular.

"What about the house, Dad?"

"Half a million dollars you spent renovating this place and your mother and I sleep in the cold living room. And don't even get me started on the dim bulbs in those fancy track lights you have."

I love his father. I need to smuggle him, adopt him and take him home.

"There are ten guests this weekend, we all need to do a little readjusting," Sarah says, pressing down silver coffee spoons on each napkin. She keeps moving in circles.

"The living room is fine. Everything is fine," Evelyn says. "Although it would be nice to use your Jacuzzi. The arthritis, you know."

"It's not like the bathroom is dead bolted, mother," Sarah says through gritted teeth.

While they bicker over barrel vaulted ceilings and dim bulbs, I keep asking myself what I have done to deserve this. If I want to suffer, I would visit my own family. Chat up my father's latest teenage-looking wife or sit while my mother plucks lint off my clothing. But then I look over at Joel. Miserable, he fixates on scooping up the last yolk with his biscuit. He can barely balance his elbows on the table as he eats. When he's done, he looks at me and asks, "What have I done to deserve this?" So I decide I will play along with this charade. Why should I make this worse for him?

The squabble between Sarah and Evelyn abates long enough for Sarah to say, "Joel tells me you've been together for a year."

"A year and change," I say.

"He mentioned so little of you on the phone..." Evelyn says, reaching for Joel's hand. He pushes her away.

"Have you set a date?" Sarah asks, smiling. "You probably already bought the dress. The day that Bill proposed, I ran to Vera Wang."

"We want to keep this intimate," I say.

"How exciting." Sighing, she says, "A celebrity in the family." Walking towards me, she lays my brother's cookbook, Edmund Eats on the table. "Maybe you could sneak me an autograph?"

"Sure." I haven't seen my brother in five years.

"Why didn't you tell us all this? About Gillian. About her family?" Evelyn repeats, "You never mentioned this on the phone."

"I don't call my mother. She prefers to eavesdrop on conversations I have with my father," Joel tells me.

Evelyn blots her glossed lips with her napkin. "My son has some residual anger from a misunderstanding a few years back."

"I would hardly call misdiagnosing his illness a misunderstanding," Jonathan says. "Try calling it a cover-up."

"He was going through a phase, Jonathan. Should I classify minor life adjustments as mental illness?"

"You're a psychiatrist. That's your job," Jonathan says.

"Okay everyone, this is breakfast. No need to raise our voices," Sarah says, collecting dirty plates.

"Wait until dinner. It gets so much more fun when we've been drinking," Joel says. Rounding his back, he cradles his arms with his hands. He nibbles on his lower lip. Joel might explode.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

"Bipolar disorder. With medication, I'm okay." Smiling weakly, he says, "Don't I look okay?"

"Never better," I lie. Above his parents shouting, I wonder. Bipolar Disorder? How long have I been asleep in this relationship? Yes, I am angry that he lured me up here under the pretense that we are engaged. And yes, I've been planning to break up with him. But how did I not know? More importantly, why hasn't Joel told me? I ask him again if he is okay.

Cupping his head in his hands, he shakes his head no. As the octaves of his parents' voices ascend, all I want to do is throw sharp objects at them - anything to shut them up. I know how this scene goes. My parents invented poor parenting. But Joel is not strong enough for this. This is only breakfast and he's going to break.

"Evelyn, he dropped out of school his first semester. Locked himself in his room for days at a time..." Jonathan puts down his paper. "How were you that blind?"

"Right, it's all my fault. I can't recall you doing a damn thing for Joel. Unless you count begging your friends in Cambridge to get him transferred."

"At least I apologized. I made peace with my son."

"One mistake, I make one mistake and he can't forgive me."

"This is such a fucking joke. You're a shrink and you can't even talk to me directly," Joel says.

Pitcher of coffee in hand, Sarah stands over the tense scene.

Jonathan rises from the table and walks out the backdoor. Evelyn follows. A multitude of four letter words trail behind her.

"I told you," Joel says.

"He's leaving her," Sarah says and collapses into a chair. Looking up at Joel she says, "Maybe you shouldn't have come."

* * *