Zofia—or rather, Zosia—suddenly pushed her chair back. Her legs creaked unpleasantly on the floor. “I won’t participate in this,” she snapped. “This is humiliation. Did you want to publicly embarrass us?” Klara didn’t raise her voice. This infuriated Zosia even more. “No,” she replied calmly. “I wanted to show reality. The one we’ve been living in for the past few months.” Tomasz stood abruptly. “This is too much. We came here as if to visit family, and you’re putting on some kind of circus.” “A circus,” Klara said, looking him straight in the eye, “is when people live for years at someone else’s expense and call it ‘family closeness.’ And that—there are limits.” Marek remained silent. But his hand rested on the table, right next to Klara’s—firmly, resolutely. He was on her side. “Mom…” Zuzia said quietly, looking at the potatoes. “Why can’t we have that one?” She nodded toward the salmon. Absolute silence fell in the room. Zosia flinched. Then she leaned sharply towards her daughter.
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