The noise of scraping chair legs and heavy boots filled the small room.

Cousins and aunts squeezed past each other to find their seats.

Luke and I sat near the swinging kitchen door at the far end of the long table.

Walt sat at the very head of the table in a big upholstered armchair.

He looked like a stern judge presiding over a packed courtroom.

Heavy ceramic bowls of mashed potatoes, long plates of sliced white bread, and glass pitchers of sweet tea lined the middle of the dark wood.

Dana tapped her metal spoon against her water glass.