Katie lets it slip out that tomorrow is “Columbus Day.” Even though, by now, she’s well-aware that it’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Her mother, Astrid, isn’t one to let the “faux pas” go unnoticed, certain to pick at any sign or indication of Katie’s inherent “defectiveness”—both as a person and a daughter. And even though Astrid could give a shit about indigenous peoples, she wants Katie to know two things: 1) that she fucked up and 2) that it’s a sign that she’s getting older. That she’s starting to sound like someone from the Silent Generation who never unlearned the blithe uttering of terms like “Oriental” and “Negro.” Katie didn’t want to become someone like that, and Astrid knew it was one of her fears lately, what with the generation after her starting to call everyone outside of themselves “old” and, therefore, “irrelevant.”

Constantly being afraid of saying the wrong thing at work had also started to make Katie trip up her word choices more frequently. The pressure not to sound offensive had, thus, rendered her offensive. And she had made the mistake of telling Astrid this one night when she popped by the house to drop off a belated birthday gift for her father, who, of course, wasn’t home. All Astrid would say is that Burt went out for a “visit with friends.” What friends? Katie wondered. What friends did a man in his seventies really have left? She knew the truth: that Burt was prone to leaving the house arbitrarily when he couldn’t stand Astrid another second. She must have decided to finish off being annoying and cutting via Katie, since Burt wouldn’t let her do it to him that evening.

So it was that Astrid lured her for a while with the promise of white wine accompanied by cheese and charcuterie that loosened her up enough to talk about what was bothering her. To Katie’s surprise, Astrid didn’t immediately side with the people at work (because Astrid always sided with whoever Katie was having issues with). Instead, she told Katie she ought to talk to HR about her concerns. The way Astrid presented it, it actually seemed logical to do so. To pre-air her grievances in case one of the younger employees ended up reporting her for being “offensive.” Because if HR was already aware of her concerns, then it would serve as protective armor where otherwise Katie might not have it. The more she thought about what Astrid said on the way home, the more it made sense. She then worried she might be too drunk to drive if she thought that Astrid was making sense.

And yet, the next day, she went through with following Astrid’s advice, and HR seemed receptive to her anxieties about being misinterpreted in the workplace. After she got it off her chest, however, she didn’t feel any sense of relief, but instead, a new sense of anxiety setting in. She couldn’t understand why. Maybe it was just the novelty of listening to something Astrid had advised her on. Whatever the reason, she chose to brush it aside and get back to her tasks at hand.

A couple days later, on the weekend, Katie returned to Astrid and Burt’s house to have her chance at seeing Burt. Mercifully, he was there this time, albeit knocking back a glass of whiskey to cope with Astrid. Katie smiled at her father’s world-weariness, and knew that was where she got her own from. Well, that and the world itself. He asked her if she’d join him in a glass and she readily agreed. She realized that both of her parents relied on the pouring of alcohol in order to promote any sense of togetherness. Did they always do that? Or was it a more recent development? A post-eighteen and out-of-the-house phenomenon, but still far back enough that Katie really couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t been such alcohol enthusiasts. She didn’t much care after the second glass of whiskey Burt poured, the two of them sitting outside on the back patio in front of the fire pit. This being the gift she had brought by on Wednesday when Burt was out. After all, every retailer insists that the “best gifts for dad” are fire pits or grooming kits. That’s the extent of male complexity to the overlords. Or whoever’s in charge of marketing at [insert major corporation name here]. But maybe they weren’t wrong. For Burt was, undeniably, lapping it up.

Soon, the day gave way to night and, before Katie knew it, she was being invited to sleep over in the guest room (which had never been her room since her parents had long ago moved out of her childhood home). The next day, she found that she was still really enjoying herself, corny as it was to admit that playing board games, watching classic movies and getting drunk with her parents was the most fun she’d had in ages. And she thought they felt the same, too. Which is why she was surprised when they didn’t ask her to stay the night again on Sunday evening, when they were all still having such a good time. Hurt by the slight, she came right out and demanded, “Aren’t you going to ask me to stay again?”

Burt replied, “Don’t you have work in the morning?”

That’s when she said, unthinkingly and unblinkingly, “It’s Columbus Day.”

It took no time for Astrid to pounce on her for that, reprimanding her for being so careless and insensitive. And then she did it—reminded Katie why she never confided in her at all. “You know, it’s no wonder you’re so concerned about offending the others at work—you’re really out of touch.”

Although Astrid was in her late sixties, she had the audacity to say this because she felt that her part-time job as an admin assistant at the nearby high school made her more “in touch” than Katie could ever possibly hope to be. And she wasn’t about to let Katie forget that, telling her, “Your dad might not have known it was Indigenous Peoples’ Day tomorrow, but I did. And the reason I didn’t invite you to stay another night is because I’d like to enjoy my day off.” There it was, Astrid’s signature cutting nature. One could never truly let their guard down for that long around Astrid, because it was a fool’s paradise, destined to crumble within no less than forty-eight hours—which is exactly what Astrid had proven yet again.

Stung by her comments, but not at all shocked (she had known it was far too good to be true that they should be getting along this swimmingly), Katie knew it was time to get up and leave. She had overstayed her welcome in more ways than one. And though her father insisted that she shouldn’t have to leave on Astrid’s account, the thought of staying a moment longer in that house of callousness and disapproval was too much for Katie to bear.

She refused to take either of their calls the next day, Indigenous People’s Day, instead booking herself an appointment for a spa pedicure and back massage that she wanted to take up most of the hours and distract her from seeing any calls or texts. To her delight, the concerted effort for “R&R” worked, and she found herself feeling completely at ease and unbothered that night back in her apartment, where she further exulted in her languor by eating a frozen pizza and watching exactly three episodes of Bewitched.

Her state of “zen” was, unfortunately, ruptured almost instantly upon returning to work on Tuesday. For it only took about one hour among the “youths” of the place to say something wrong. To make a crack about how Christopher Columbus was “just another Jew escaping persecution” when he left Spain in 1492. This, she soon learned, was affronting to a co-worker she didn’t even know was Jewish, but who said that Katie’s “claims” about Columbus being Jewish were unfounded, unproven and straight-up uncalled for (they weren’t). Incidentally, it was precisely because Katie had already alerted HR to her fear of offending people that the head of the department took this accusation of antisemitism so seriously, believing Katie to be incapable of seeing herself in an objective light (but then, who among us can see ourselves in an objective light?).

She was accordingly told to leave early for the day and later instructed to take the latest round of anti-racism courses the company had invented to assuage its scant few POC employees that the whites weren’t really racist—or at least they wouldn’t be after enough conditioning. Katie’s first inclination upon driving away from the parking lot was to race right over to her mother’s and accuse her of deliberately jinxing her, of giving her the worst advice ever solely to watch it blow up in her face. But she knew that, ultimately, it was her own fault for believing that Astrid could ever possibly have her best interests at heart. Just as it was naïve for any Native American to presume such a thing about the colonialists (whether of the Columbus “explorer” or stock missionary variety)—that is, when they assured that all they were doing was “civilizing” them. Which is “all” Astrid, Katie’s workplace and her co-workers were doing to her with their beratement.