I was standing in the parking lot of a Vons on Adams Avenue holding a phone.

Two seats.

One next to my husband and one next to his mother, added the day after I found out the party existed, at the head table of a family gathering I had been deliberately excluded from.

“Ev,” I said.

“I need to be there.”

“You can’t be there.

She’ll have you thrown out and then it’s about you.”

“I know.”