EMILY PRATT SLATIN

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She/Her/Hers Lesbian

Retired Career Fire and EMS Lieutenant-Specialist, Writer, and Master Photographer, living in Vermont.

I Am The Daughter Of Anne Slatin

August 18, 2026—Stamford, New York (Mom's House)

I was invited to a dinner party in last night in Stamford, and against my better judgment, I went. I had already predicted how the evening would go. I would be there, but not really part of it. People would talk around me, perhaps through me, and I would spend the evening wondering why I had bothered.

I was right. What I had not anticipated was how literal the whole thing would become.

I was seated in the middle of the table. Everyone else had divided themselves into groups at either end, and I sat there like some misplaced figure in the Last Supper. People on one side of me carried on conversations with people on the other side, and at several points I actually had to lean out of the way so they could see one another.

Nobody seemed to find this unusual. I stayed for two and a half hours.

Every once in a while, someone would ask me a question about Stamford in the old days. My parents and I have owned a house here in the middle of town since 1986. Some of the people at that table had not even been born yet. None of them, aside from me, had lived in Stamford for more than two years.

I remembered events because I had been here to experience them when they happened. None of this seemed to matter. If I answered a question based on something I had personally experienced, and someone they had known longer offered a different version, that person's version carried more weight.

The dinner itself was being held in the former home of family friends. Our families had known each other years ago. The parents passed away and eventually the surviving family sold the house and moved away. The people hosting the dinner now live in their old house.

It felt like an alternate reality standing in the house of a family friend with the layout and many of the furnishings being the same, yet the people living in the house were new to me. I didn’t know any of their names.

There are towns where a person can return after twenty years and still be identified by whose child she was. At some point, I told the host that I am the daughter of Anne Slatin, the former mayor of Stamford.

Apparently I played that card too late. By then, everyone had already settled into their respective social groups, and I remained in the middle, occasionally moving my head out of the way so someone could continue talking past me.

They immediately presumed that I still had a family. I told them I did not. They dismissed the claim that I was an only child, and my biological family abandoned me decades ago.

Eventually, I had enough and left. Or should I say that I attempted to leave. Someone had parked behind my car. I had to go back and ask them to move it, which apparently became a significant inconvenience as it interrupted their conversation.

For two and a half hours, nobody had been especially inconvenienced by my presence. The moment I wanted to leave, however, my existence suddenly became relevant.

I finally got back to Mom's house and texted Nora. We spent the rest of the night talking about what had happened. I was depressed.

I had expected the evening to go badly. I had predicted it. I had gone anyway because, for once, I thought perhaps I might be wrong.

Nearly everyone at the party is part of the same local arts group. My neighbors are part of it. The people at the dinner are part of it. They are all friends. Mom and one of her friends founded the organization years ago with its headquarters being next door to Mom's house.

I had been invited, at least in part, because they expected me to become a donor. They also hoped I might contribute to a documentary they want to make. I had spent two and a half hours wondering whether these people wanted me there. I do not expect special treatment because someone thinks I might donate money. I do not expect people to flatter me, agree with me, or pretend to be interested in everything I say.

I do, however, expect people who invite me to dinner to speak to me. To me that seems like a fairly basic expectation. I certainly did not expect to spend the evening physically leaning out of the way so that the people on either side of me could continue conversations with each other. Nor did I expect my forty years of experience in Stamford to become irrelevant the moment someone they had known longer offered another opinion.

None of that makes them terrible people. It does make the question of whether I want to give their organization money rather simple. I do not—I will not be donating to the arts group, and I will not be contributing to the documentary.

The amusing part will be what happens when my neighbors find out.

They are already utterly convinced that I blame them for the structural problems with the garage, despite the fact that the garage is an entirely separate matter that falls squarely on their landlord. Since they are part of the same arts group, and everyone involved seems to know everyone else, I have little doubt that my decision not to donate will eventually become part of whatever narrative they have constructed about me.

That is their problem. I am not withholding a donation as punishment.

Today I will have a friend come over with a backhoe to dig out and repair the garage foundation and carry on as if nothing happened. I already gave the neighbors weeks of advance notice that this would take place. It’s out of my hands.