Chapter 4: Sunday Dinner

The roast chicken arrived at the Oakes family table whole, and Griffin pulled off a leg with his bare hand.

He did it slowly, so everyone would see.

Grease ran down his wrist.

His father, Garrison, put his fork down at the head of the table.

"We have knives, Griffin."

"I like the direct approach," said Griffin, and bit into the leg.

His mother closed her eyes. She had stopped asking him to behave somewhere around his sixteenth birthday.

Imogen sat across from him in a pale gray dress, her hair pinned, her napkin on her knee.

She looked at the chicken for a moment.

Then she lifted a drumstick off the platter with two fingers, wrapped a napkin around the bone, and took a small, tidy bite.

"It's very good, Delphine," she said.

"Thank you, dear," Delphine said, watching her.

Griffin pulled a thigh free and chewed louder.

Imogen finished her bite, set the drumstick on her plate at a precise angle, and licked one fingertip.

She did it once, without hurry, with her eyes on his.

Griffin swallowed wrong.

"Water?" Imogen asked.

"I'm fine."

"You're purple."

His mother laughed, and covered it with her glass.

Garrison laid his phone on the table, face up, and pressed play.

There was the pond. There was Griffin, in full flight, with a koi on his shoulder.

"Your cousin forwarded it," Garrison said. "He thought I should see how things were going."

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