Timmy prepared to surpass him, when his father slapped him on the ear. Tommy, in wailing how much he hated nuts, only attracted a slap of his own. Both boys had to say thank you, audibly, to my mother. It was easier for the children that hadn’t been slapped.

My mother returned to the kitchen. Sharon and Ursula offered to help, probably wanting to discuss in greater depth Mr. Tatta’s potty-training problem. My mother said it would ruin the surprise and ordered me to set the table. I put out my mother’s most elaborate china, silverware and crystal, praying I would not have to sit next to Mr. Tatta.

I sat across from him. As we eleven tore apart our stuffed artichokes, my mother answering each compliment with “fresh from de tree”, I contemplated Mr. Tatta. I could not believe that a full-grown man with a pot belly, a Timex watch and a wedding band was not yet potty-trained. Then again, his baldness gave him the look of an overgrown baby. I imagined him wriggling on his back, his legs in the air, as Ursula wiped his bottom, sprinkled talc upon it and secured a safety pin into his nappy. Sharon Minsky had trouble looking at him, too. I supposed Ursula had let her in on the secret and she was imagining the same thing I was.

My mother presented the main course as a Lithuanian speciality her mother had passed on to her before she died, like hers had to her. She lifted the silver dome to reveal bony brown bits of meat with prunes mixed in. My mother warned there were stones in the prunes, but said they had more flavour that way. I was with her when she was shopping, she had wanted the stoneless ones but they were forty cents more.

Mr. Tatta blushed as he stared down at his plate. Maybe he thought my mother was trying to tell him something.

“Prunes?!” protested Tommy.

“You should not criticize before you try. Remember ‘Green Eggs and Ham’?” asked Ursula before adding with a defiant stare, “Yes I like them, Sam I Am?!”

“I won’t like ’em in any house, with any mouse,” Tommy broke off as his father’s face foreboded another slap.

Cecilia gave thanks for this day, the sunny weather, our health, named each of us present, including “mociùté” (“granny” in Lithuanian) already in heaven, then at last thanked God for the food we were about to eat. Stag Head and I exchanged a look of sympathy.

Everyone but me had dug in and was not unpleasantly surprised, when Timmy had to go and ask what it was. He was too young to know that what you don’t know doesn’t hurt you. My mother straightened up, stuck her chin as high as it would go to make herself appear taller (a technique she resorted to whenever she saw her reflection in a store window or a camera was aimed anywhere near her) and proclaimed, “Rabbit.”