“Table Nineteen.”

I understood the message perfectly, because it was designed to be understood.

The family table sat elevated on a bright dais at the front, directly before the dance floor, lit like an altar.

Table Nineteen sat as far from that dais as the architecture of the room allowed — shoved into the darkest corner, hard against the swinging doors of the kitchen, so close that the waiters’ traffic would be my dinner companions’ background music all night.

I was seated with a scattering of distant, elderly relatives and two of my mother’s college roommates, the human equivalent of a coat closet.