Monika added that she thought Roger Stoltz was a good man and a patriot and he had promised to come over later in the evening.

Karl nodded agreeably but drifted off into a memory so clear and painful that Andy thought he saw Alma Vonn’s tiny image flickering in his black eyes.

Nick put his arm around his pregnant wife and set a hand on her very large bulge.

Clay and Eileen left the table early and changed shoes in the mudroom to take a walk around the property because Eileen was from Maine and had never been in an orange grove.

David smiled through his mustache and helped his mother with the dishes.

The Vonn girls helped Max and Meredith clear the table.

Andy watched Meredith with a vague ache in his heart and a very specific and painful one in each of his nuts.

“She’s a beautiful girl,” said Katy. “You’re lucky.”

“I know.”

AFTER THE FEAST Andy asked Karl Vonn if he could talk to him a second on the front porch.

Vonn didn’t even hesitate. “Sure,” he said.

Without asking, Andy poured Karl a glass of wine, then one for himself. They sat on rattan chairs with a round rattan table between them. It wasn’t quite dark yet but the porch light was already on. Andy wondered if Karl Vonn’s agreeability came from years in prison or jail.

“I…I’m very sorry about your wife,” Andy managed.

“Oh?”

“Yes, um-hm. Very.” He felt his words failing him. It was an entirely new experience, and terrifying.

“I still can’t believe it,” said Mr. Vonn. He took a sip of the wine, but from the way he held the rim of the glass Andy could tell he wasn’t used to a wine goblet.

“I’m supposed to write the obit.”

“Obit? Well.”

“May I?”

Andy set his glass on the porch rail and brought a small notebook out of a back trouser pocket. Then a ballpoint from his jacket. He felt a gush of sweat break onto his face and back, and an odd tightness of vision.