That said, allow me to concede that my brother Hiram is an incredible asshole. He’s just a complete jerk. He finds your worst insecurities and then tortures you until you’ll do practically anything to escape his voice’s dry wheezing and the spectacle of bony fists clutching that walker. It is true that Hiram’s voice trembles. Hiram is ninety-three, his breathing is irregular, and his voice naturally shudders and cracks. It is fair to guess that he may have felt, that night with flowers at his feet and with a crowd of younger men gathered as observers, uneasy about his effectiveness as a figure of potency and strength. He needn’t have.

“Take a look at yourself, Doug. Take an honest look at yourself standing there with your hair falling in your eyes. You really could do with a trim and a shave.” He paused, coughed, inhaled one of his racking breaths. He resumed, “You need some new clothes. Those clothes you’re wearing don’t even fit you. Who wears a corduroy jacket anymore? You don’t even stand straight, Doug. You slouch. You’ve always slouched. You have the posture of a weak person.”

Times like these make me promise myself—always after the fact, of course—to skip these evenings and do something constructive instead, reacquaint myself with the more recondite heraldic literature, or sketch out, for future notation, a few pen-and-ink “family tree” line drawings. You can never have too many pristine family trees.

“Doug, it’s a good thing Father isn’t around anymore to see what’s become of you.”

Did I present such a sorrowful picture? It is true that I slouch a bit. I try not to hunch over, but I’m not getting any younger, and my shoulders ache after a wintry night sitting in a straight-backed library chair, straining my eyes over water-stained property deeds, blurry date-of-death certificates, illegibly written ships’ registries. When I get up, I’m bushed and I stoop. I don’t think my hair is that bad. My hair is naturally fine and growing thin on top, it’s a fact, and for this reason I leave it long on the sides—just below the ears. Don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t wear a “comb over.” There is nothing more vulgar on a mature man than a comb over. I brush my hair in the morning and, after that, pretty much let it fly where the wind blows it. My clothes, I admit, are a few seasons out of date. What about this? I’ve never followed fashion and I don’t trust men—I’m thinking of the twins with their colorful, expensive matching sweaters—who heed the latest styles. It may be that this particular outfit of mine—navy corduroy jacket with patch pockets, my worsted wool “duck hunting” trousers with their frayed and grimy cuffs, clothes I’m comfortable wearing—would seem, to a bystander, small and rather tight, possibly even constricting. I admit I have recently put on an inch or two around the middle. Like I said, I’m not getting any younger. Of course, midbody weight gain will naturally force a garment to shift. These coat sleeves could be let out. It probably would not hurt to have a tailor cut down the lapels. I suspect that Hiram would have had less to say about my general appearance and demeanor if there had not been so much blood—Maxwell’s blood—staining my tie and shirtfront.