His mother was hurrying back to the parlor, most likely with an armful of bowls, and so he slipped out of the closet, or little room, carefully replacing the door as it was, and then darted out into the hall so that he could enter the parlor through the door closer to the sewing room, and fool everyone into thinking he’d come from there. When he entered, the same faint cheer that had rose to meet him earlier was repeated, and he took his place, suppressing a thrill at the thought that his ruse had worked, that his trespass would not be noticed. Then came a flash of alarm at the thought of the dusty floor, the possibility that he’d left tracks in it – but no, he would have seen their tracks too, wouldn’t he? It was clear they were using the room, that they had been misleading him about it; hadn’t the door swung on its hinges easily? Wouldn’t they be ... fused, that’s it, rusted shut, if the door hadn’t been used in such a long time?

Maybe they put Smokey in there sometimes? Was it Smokey he’d been smelling? Was there something wrong with him, that they were keeping from him, that they had to treat in secret? Smokey was old, but he seemed well enough. He never smelled like that, even when he’d doused himself in the ocean. That wasn’t the answer.

Sitting on all manner of chairs, filling their plates with the food on the coffee table and then perching them on the crowded little side tables, they all ate together, talking merrily in their hushed way. His cousins were giddy, like people who were so tired they were starting to find it funny, and Aunt Inger knocked over a wine glass with a clumsiness that wasn’t like her at all. They were all drinking very freely, and even his parents, while they were more restrained than the others, still tossed back glass after glass. Smokey munched food from his bowl by the fireplace. Lucas looked surreptitiously for a cheese dish. The smell of the little room was here in the parlor too now, but so faint he wondered if it weren’t clinging to his own clothes. There was no clear source for it. The smell was simply there, like the watery twilight filtering through the faded dimity curtains, and mingled with the vinous smell of drinking, the savory onion smell of their dinner.

Everyone was kind to Lucas and made a point of saying something to him. When the meal was over, the adults rearranged the parlor for coffee, and the younger cousins took charge of Lucas and played a board game with him in the sewing room.