I wanted to hear the crying again. That sound didn’t come back. A black bat darted quickly through the air over the oak table, pursued to table’s edge by a triplet lunging over place mats with his net. People weren’t sitting in their assigned seats. The Doberman barked again—he’d emerged from the stacks and was pacing anxiously around chairs. Apparently he’d spied the bat. A voice in the crowd suggested opening windows for the bat, or bats, to fly out of. Brothers put down plates and went to do this. Several tall windows were painted shut, but most were not. One near the head of the table was unlatched, then raised, with difficulty, by Brice. He had to struggle to budge it. The window sash was warped; going up, rotted wood scraped in the ancient frame. Other windows went up in the same rough way, and winds swept into the library. The winds blew manuscript pages from a table near the African masks. These papers sailed up into the room, and the dog, excited, saw them and ran in circles, around and around below soaring white sheets, eyeing them as they drifted, huge confetti fluttering down, page after page settling around Gunner on the floor.

It was that time of evening when things start going wrong and it’s every man for himself.

“Dinner’s getting cold!” Jeremiah shouted at the men raising windows. The dog, smelling meat, left papers on the ground and trotted, head up, across the room to our table.

“Leash that animal!” someone shouted in the direction of Chuck’s assigned seat. This chair was unoccupied because Chuck had taken himself and a bottle of Scotch off to a corner table shared by Leon, Bennet, and Saul.

Displaced brothers roamed at large. The twins were assembled, predictably, in their line of eight. Clay, Seth, Vidal, Gustavus, and Joe had been orphaned from their seats. Young Jeremy’s place was free; this boy remained on his back on the purple divan, eyes closed, recovering from Fielding’s assault earlier in the night. That fight seemed, to me, like something that had happened ages before. But it had been a recent event. What time was it anyway? I didn’t dare ask. As I believe I’ve mentioned, a question like that can start a brawl. Seth and Vidal hurriedly ran around the foot of the dinner table, grabbed the chairs left vacant by Samuel and Scott. The triplets, off chasing bats, lost their places to Ralph, Lewis, and Rod. Noises everywhere were getting louder. Gunner the Doberman’s eyes glistened, watery. Frank looked unhappy. Our pork chops were disappearing fast. A man’s voice beside me said, “It’s past ten o’clock.”