I kept glancing at it without meaning to.

A man who has cooked a meal eats the meal; it is nearly a law of kitchens.

But Keith sat with his hands folded and his own place bare and watched the food leave our plates and not his, and the longer that dish sat full between us the less it looked like dinner and the more it looked like a line he had drawn across the table, with the two of us on one side of it and himself on the other.

“You are not eating?” I asked.