Chapter 22: My Table

I kept the pen.

I told the four of them so before they got back in the car.

"It's mine," I said. "It has my words on it, and nobody gave it to me as a favor."

"It took the shop three tries to get the engraving right," Franco said quietly. "Dario made them do it over."

"Then thank the shop."

Dario looked at me for a long moment.

"Okay," he said, and for once he did not add anything.

On Sunday evening, I stood in the back patio of my building with a stack of index cards.

The neighbors had dragged out three tables of different heights and pushed them into a line.

The man from 3A had strung white lights along the fence with a ladder and a lot of complaining.

The graduate student had brought candles in jars.

The whole team was coming, all eight, and Seth was carrying plates out of my kitchen two at a time.

My mother arrived at five with a suitcase and a tray covered in foil.

My father came behind her, carrying a case of wine nobody had asked him to bring.

I had called her on Wednesday.

I had said, "Mom, would you like to come to Austin for dinner on Sunday? You can say no."

She had been quiet for a long time.

Then she said, "Yes," and I could hear her putting the kettle on, to give her hands something to do.

She stood on the patio now, in her coat, looking at the table.

"It's long," she said.

"There are a lot of us."

"It's not even."

"It's three tables, Mom."

"I like it," she said, and she touched the edge of the nearest chair, which was a piano bench.

"The man from 3A will want to talk to you about the sauce," I said.

"Which one is he?"

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