The smell of roasted garlic and baked ham hung heavy in the warm air.

“No matter who owns it now, those memories belong to him,” I said.

Walt kept his heavy head perfectly still.

He wouldn’t look up from the white porcelain rim of his plate.

The silence stretched out painfully over the long table.

Aunt Betty looked back and forth between me and Walt with wide eyes.

Mark stared down at his glass of ice water and took a slow drink.

I sat back down in my metal folding chair.