“Out at a quarter past,” he said.

“Out at a quarter past.”

“Your hands are steady.”

“They’re going to be.”

Through the door, Frank’s laugh went up and then dropped off too suddenly, the way a laugh does when the joke wasn’t really a joke.

At eight I stood at my own table with a glass in one hand and my mother’s silver spoon in the other, and I tapped the rim twice.

Twelve faces turned.