When she said, “So we just lay our burdens at your feet. Amen,” all the pastini en brodo in our bowls was stone cold and the manager had came over and asked what was wrong with our soup since no one had touched it. He asked if we’d rather have the prosciutto con melone to start with. Mom said no, we loved his soup and she smiled at us so we’d know what to do. We started to eat the cold soup and we all said how good it was. The manager stood looking at us as if he were in a lot of pain because Italians hate it when you don’t eat your food right and he could not understand why we had all sat staring down at our soup plates for twenty minutes before we took one mouthful. Finally he wrung his hands one last time then went back to the other side of the terrace in despair.

When the roast chicken was served Dad finally came down because he was hungry after all, even though he was depressed. He had probably just wanted to miss enough of dinner to make a point to Mother as part of this vacation’s fight. I wasn’t sure what the point he was wanting to make was but I think it was to get back at Mom for getting up at 4 A.M. and going out to read her Bible and pray sitting on the rocks by the lighthouse. She had done that to show Dad how the Lord was her refuge in times of trouble and how Dad was that trouble and how instead of getting angry because he had thrown all her clothes out of the hotel window and screamed, “If you say another word, Elsa, I’ll throw you out too!” which I had heard through my hotel room door the day before, he’d yelled it so loud, she had gone to the Lord in prayer like he should have done. So he was getting even for her goodness in the face of adversity.

Mom stood up and said, “Oh, Ralph, how nice you’ve come down to join us. We were just praying for you.”

Dad said, “I bet you were,” and sat down, which was pretty rude.

Dad shouted, “Garcon!”

And the waiter came over and said, “Si?”

“Give me some chicken, can’t you see I haven’t been served?”

While the waiter hurried off to get Dad his food, Mom said very sweetly, “Here, Ralph, have mine,” and pushed her plate of chicken and roast potatoes with rosemary over to him.

Then Dad said, “What a saint you are!” and he picked up her plate and held it out over the edge of the table and dropped it on the floor where it hit the big red tiles and sort of exploded. “I don’t want your chicken, thank you anyway,” Dad said.