A Quiet Dinner at the Woolybay Home (Which, in all fairness, is never quiet)

The Woolybay dining table is set for a quiet dinner. This fact is agreed upon by everyone in the house and believed by absolutely no one. The chairs scrape softly at first, plates arrive with care, and for exactly twelve seconds there is silence—the ceremonial silence before the giggles begin. Someone snorts. Someone drops a fork. Someone remembers Comic Con. Mamma Woolybay rules the kitchen tonight, as she always does, with an apron that has seen many victories and a ladle that commands respect. The lentil soup sits proudly in the center of the table, steaming gently, as if aware it is the most sensible item present. Pasta with vegetables waits on two plates—Mamma’s and Papa’s—earnest, colorful, and pretending to be adult. The kids, of course, get mac and cheese. Bright. Creamy. Unapologetic. Father Woolybay barely sits before the teasing begins. “So… rockstar,” one of the kids says, with the kind of innocence that is clearly weaponized. Another mimics a dramatic guitar pose. Someone hums an imaginary anthem. Papa Woolybay sighs, the sigh of a man who wore sequins once and will now carry that moment forever. He reaches for his pasta with dignity, which only makes the laughter louder. Mamma Woolybay doesn’t join in immediately—she lets it simmer, like her soup—then finally smiles and shakes her head. “You were enjoying it,” she says. That seals his fate. Between spoonfuls of lentils and spirals of pasta, stories bounce across the table. Not big stories. Small ones. A silly comment. A misremembered detail. A joke that doesn’t quite land but is laughed at anyway because that’s how it works here. The mac and cheese disappears faster than expected. The soup gets refilled. Someone asks for more veggies and is applauded dramatically. This is a quiet dinner at the Woolybay home. No music. No stage lights. No comic con crowds. Just chuckles, giggles, gentle teasing, and the steady, comforting clatter of a family being exactly itself. And if that isn’t quiet by Woolybay standards, nothing ever will be. 🫶