As she was taking out the pitcher she asked, “What’s ‘chalk and chalk’?”

“Instead of chalk and cheese. If Walter and Roy were chalk and cheese, they’d be so different, they might just get along. Not that they don’t get along. I guess when people say ‘chalk and cheese,’ they do mean two people who don’t get along. But you know what I mean.”

Teresa didn’t. She poured.

“I watched it happen back in Grand Rapids, when Roy was a teenager,” Helen continued. “He was more like his father every day. But there wasn’t a thing you could do about it.”

“You didn’t want them to be alike?”

“I wanted them to like each other. That would have been nice. And I think they do, now; they just don’t realize it. They’re still getting used to being around each other.”

“Well, I think Roy is happy that we moved down here.”

“Oh, I know he is,” Helen confirmed.

The sliding glass door opened. Roy entered first, followed by Walter. “I’m just saying that lighter fluid is a scam. That’s my opinion. Charcoal was made to light. Lighter fluid’s just an extra tacked on by some joker who’s probably a millionaire by now.”

“And all your marketing research has proven this?” Roy asked, glancing at Teresa as he walked over to the sink.

“I’m just saying,” Walter said again.

“Yes, Pop,” Roy volleyed back, “that’s all you’re doing: saying.”

Teresa looked at her in-laws. Walter had wandered into the living room and Helen was looking down into her glass. In that moment Teresa reached over and spanked Roy on the butt. He shot her a look. Behave, she tried to say with her eyes, and because he didn’t seem to get this message, she leaned into his ear and whispered, “Bad boy.”

As if it were possible to get more channels than they did, Walter bent over in front of the television, turned it on, and popped his way around the dial several times. “Nothing,” he said, frowning at the screen. “It’s the biggest event since the Mayflower, since Columbus set foot, and they’re showing all the regular programs. Would you come over here, Roy?”

Roy grimaced. He pecked Teresa on the cheek and walked into the living room, past his mother, to the television, where his father was stooped over. “What?”

“Am I doing this right?” The man motioned with the magazine for Roy to bend over with him.

Roy squatted down. “Are you turning the dial right? I guess so.”

When their heads were level in front of the screen, his father’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I know we butt heads. It’s just what we do. But really, I want you to know I think you’re doing a decent job here.”