Sammy and Jacob pushed away their plates and groaned. Sam said, “Really dynamite, Omah, but I ate too much. No room for dessert.”

“Aaah.” She dismissed his announcement. “Just a leetle strudel. Mostly fruit.”

“Apple?” Sammy asked.

She nodded. “And a little nut cake.”

“There are cookies, too,” Jacob added. “I saw them in the kitchen.”

“For Hannah!” Magda explained.

“Where’s Papa?” Rina asked.

Magda pointed to the back room. Without fanfare, Stefan Elias had retired to the den, to his chair and his TV programs. Usually the routine required Decker to join him between dinner and dessert. Rina began helping her mother clear the dishes. Decker picked up a platter. He whispered to his wife, “So when are we going to talk about Hannah’s family-tree report?”

“Soon, soon,” Rina told him.

“Why don’t you just tell her—”

“Shhhh.”

Decker rolled his eyes. “Are you going to wash the dishes?”

“No, the boys are going to wash.”

“We are?” Jacob said.

“Most definitely.”

Magda interjected, “I have a dishwasher.”

She had a deeshvasher.

Rina said, “This is good china.”

“I have a delicate cycle, Ginny. You think I live in the nineteenth century?” She turned to her grandsons. “You just rinse and put it in the racks, okay? Then you work up an appetite for dessert.”

Sammy said, “Yeah, I hear that dishwashing is the new aerobics, Omah.”

Decker smiled and elbowed his son’s ribs.

Magda said, “You go join Stefan, Peter? He is expecting you.”

“In a few minutes. I wanted to hear you talk about your family with Hannah.”

“I don’t have much to tell.” Magda’s face tightened. “It was not a happy childhood.”

“I know that.” Decker went over to her and kissed her cheek. “If it’s too hard, we can skip the childhood and start with after you came to America.” Rina gave him dagger eyes. He ignored her. “It’s totally up to you.”

“That would be better.” Magda went back to the dinner table and began gathering dirty dishes.

“The boys will do that,” Rina said. “Sit.”

“No, I like to move around.”

Decker said, “Like mother, like daughter.”

They brought a new round of soiled dishes into the kitchen.

“Oh goody,” Sammy said. “I was almost through and just hoping for more.”

“Stop complaining,” Rina told him.

Magda went back out to the dining room. Decker and Rina followed.

“Sit down, Magda,” Decker told her. “The boys can get the rest.”

The old woman sat.

Rina said, “How come you listen to him and not to me?”

“He eats my food,” Magda retorted. “Where is Channaleh?”

“With Opah,” Decker answered.

It was interesting how he called Rina’s mother Magda but Rina’s father was Opah—grandfather. Decker sat on one side of his mother-in-law, Rina on the other. “The two of them are watching Animal Planet. How about we do this, Magda? You go over your childhood really briefly so Hannah will have something to put down. Not more than a couple of minutes. Just things like where you lived in Germany, what you remember about Munich before you moved to Budapest—”