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long weeks avoiding this confrontation. As she watched her father carefully fold his paper along the creases and set it on the coffee table, she knew he was preparing himself for another raging argument with his wayward daughter. But there was something else she had never experienced before, an emotional distance that allowed her to observe the moment without her customary indignation. She had not come to argue. And this astonished her almost as much as her certainty that God had spoken to her in church. Leading her to this very moment, when she could calmly meet her father’s gaze.
    Her father went on. “The IRS audited our local Tea Party chapter five times in five years. And because I was chairman, they did the same to my business. Five times! I’ve called the congressman’s office and volunteered to testify. I’d give them an earful, I can tell you that.”
    Jenny could feel her mother’s strain radiating from the room’s far side. Ready to spring into action the moment Richard brought up the real reason for his pent-up anger. To which Jenny would no doubt respond with anger of her own. Provoking her father’s next salvo, which was when he would call her disrespectful. That one word was the point at which Jenny usually detonated.
    Only not today.
    Jenny said, “I have come to apologize.”
    The request clearly caught Richard flat-footed. Jenny never apologized. She argued. Loudly.
    Jenny went on, “I should never have gotten caught up in that march. I had a chance to step away and I did not.”
    Richard squinted, as though trying to identify who exactly was addressing him. “You hadn’t gone to New York to attend that rally?”
    “No, Pop. I just let myself get swept up in the excitement.”
    “Some excitement. Getting yourself arrested.” But his steam had evaporated. He seemed to speak words written by another. “You shamed your family.”
    “I know that. And I’m sorry.”
    Her mother stepped forward. “Why don’t we sit down? Lunch is ready.”
    As Jenny followed her father into the dining room, her mother patted her on the shoulder. A simple gesture, and a rare one.
    Their conversation was stilted, but at least it was cordial. The only risky moment came when her mother brought up the new dentist working with her father. “He’s such a charming young man. Isn’t he, dear?”
    “Good hands,” her father said. “Excellent with patients.”
    “And so handsome. He’s mixed blood, of course. So many young people are these days. His mother is Mandarin, isn’t that right?”
    “Shanghai by way of Boston.”
    “And his father is from Seoul. He is fluent in both languages.”
    Normally any hint of pressure from either parent for her to wed was enough to set her off. Today, however, all Jenny said was, “If he works in Pop’s office, he’s got to share Pop’s politics.”
    “I met him at a Tea Party conference,” her father confirmed.
    Jenny looked from one to the other. “Do you think I could ever live happily under the same roof with an archconservative? Really?”
    They let the matter drop.
    As they were clearing away the dishes, Jenny knew she could put it off no longer. “Pop, I was wondering if I could ask your advice.”
    The two elders froze. In other circumstances, it would have been comic, both parents motionless in shock. Jenny never asked their opinion about anything. She made her decision, and then she told them what she was going to do. Always.
    They gradually regained the function of their limbs. Jenny accompanied them into the kitchen and set her plates in the sink. “I’ve been given my posting in China. It’s in Guangzhou. They want me to start in two months.”
    “You know what I think,” her father barked. “If you’re moving overseas, go with a mission organization.”
    “We’ve been all through that, Pop. It won’t work.”
    “Because you’re too stubborn.”
    “No. Well, yes. I am stubborn. But that’s not the reason.”
    Her calm replies kept her father