“Yes,” Richard said.

“That was his phrase.”

Aunt Beatrice shifted Noah carefully, his tiny mouth opening in a sleepy yawn.

“Your mother tried to take the phone from him after she realized everyone could hear,” she said.

“But by then, the room had gone quiet.”

I pictured my parents’ dining room glowing with candlelight, Whitney sitting beneath the crystal chandelier, my mother’s best silver laid out beside folded linen napkins.

I imagined all those polished faces turning toward my father as his voice filled the space.