el."

Aunt Lucille smiled, if you could call it that--a pitiful twitching of
the lips--and nodded. She threw her eyes in his direction, and past him,
and then down to her plate. Mother, who was still sniffling, said, "I
have a dismal headache. I'm going to lie down in the guest room a
while." She touched his shoulder in passing--his affectionate, effusive
mother who would kiss stray dogs and strange children, who had often
irritated him with an excess of physical and verbal caresses--she barely
touched his shoulder and fled.

So now five of them sat at the table. The meat was served--thin, rare
slices of beef, the pink blood-juice oozing warmly from the center. He
cut into it and raised a forkful to his mouth, then glanced at Ralphie
and said, "Looks fresh enough to have been killed in the back yard."
Ralphie said, "Yeah, Dad." Aunt Lucille put down her knife and fork and
murmured something to her husband. Joe cleared his throat and said
Lucille was rapidly becoming a vegetarian and he guessed she was going
into the living room for a while. "She'll be back for dessert, of
course," he said, his laugh sounding forced.

Hank looked at Edith; Edith was busy with her plate. Hank looked at
Ralphie; Ralphie was busy with his plate. Hank looked at Joe; Joe was
chewing, gazing out over their heads to the kitchen. Hank looked at
Lucille; she was disappearing into the living room.

He brought his fist down on the table. The settings jumped; a glass
overturned, spilling water. He brought it down again and again. They
were all standing now. He sat there and pounded the table with his big
right fist--Henry Devers, who would never have thought of making such a
scene before, but who was now so sick and tired of being treated as the
First One, of being stood back from, looked at in awe of, felt in fear
of, that he could have smashed more than a table.

Edith said, "Hank!"

He said, voice hoarse, "Shut up. Go away. Let me eat alone. I'm sick of
the lot of you."

* * * * *

Mother and Joe returned a few minutes later where he sat forcing food
down his throat. Mother said, "Henry dear--" He didn't answer. She began
to cry, and he was glad she left the house then. He had never said
anything really bad to his mother. He was afraid this would have been
the time. Joe merely cleared his throat and mumbled something about
getting together again soon and "drop out and see the new development"
and he, too,