It’s so abrupt a subject change that I blink down at him, recalibrating.

People. He means three people.

I reassess his question. What about tomorrow? Will he get to stay up late? I don’t have an honest answer.

“We’ll see,” I say again.

“Want you,” Emma moans, trying to shove Charlie away. A few seats down, old John Jones waggles his fingers at her, laughing the laugh of someone who’s seen all of this before, but Emma scowls back yet more fiercely and tugs at my hair like I’m a rope to climb.

I negotiate her back into my lap with Charlie and fire mental arrows down the table, freshly infuriated by how completely marooned I am tonight. It’s one thing for Hugh to be upstairs, sleeping it off, for me to know where I stand, but if he’s here, he needs to fucking do something. Is he really so far gone that he can’t entertain Emma for a bit, dandle her on his knee at the very least instead of sitting there, half-catatonic?

But when I catch sight of my husband, any intention of communicating with him drops away.

He’s staring at Matthew. Unblinking. Smiling as he stares, a snake before the strike.

The mantel clock chimes.

I know what time it is, but I still listen to every single clang.

This is it. The last chime before sunset.

9:00 P.M.

The sun is sliding away quickly now. Soft summer light filled the room a few minutes ago, but it has reached its limit, the edge of the southern windows, casting a line that cleaves the dining table, brightness and shadow. The back of Jenny Pike’s head glows, beatific. Light lands on Sally’s arm, Brian’s hand, a discarded napkin.

Hugh is in shadow.

He knows. He must. He’s got fury written into the lines of his sweat.

At the same time that I notice it, the shift, Matthew does too.

He blinks over at Hugh and sets his napkin on the table, a muscle in his jaw working. “Is there something you’d like to say?”

Matty’s voice is low, but not so low that I can’t pick it out among the rest of the table’s din.

“As a matter of fact, there is,” Hugh says.

His voice is more than loud enough to carry. Loud enough to silence the table once again. I expected his words to be incoherent, but they’re crisp. Sober.

“I was moved as you all were by my lovely wife’s words.”

“Hear, hear!” Brian says, the soul of jollity, even now as the room’s tension thickens into cold porridge.

I feel Matthew’s mouth, hot on my neck, the gravel under my head, the wind whipping around us. It seems like years ago.