I looked at my watch. “I’m about twenty minutes away. I’ll be a couple minutes late. Start without me.”

EVERYONE WAS AT THE TABLE when I arrived.

My sister, Valerie, was pushed back about a foot and a half to accommodate her beach ball belly. A couple weeks ago she’d started using the belly like a shelf, balancing her plate on it, tucking her napkin into the neck of her shirt, catching spilled food on her huge swollen breasts. She’d gained seventy pounds with the baby and she was all big boobs and double chins and ham hock arms. Unheard of for Valerie, who previous to her divorce had been the perfect daughter, resembling the serene and slim Virgin Mary in every way, with the possible exception of virginity and hair style. The hair was Meg Ryan.

Albert Kloughn was at her side, his face round and pink, his scalp gleaming under his thinning sandy hair. He was watching Valerie with unabashed awe and affection. Kloughn wasn’t a subtle guy. He hadn’t any idea how to hide an emotion. Probably he wasn’t great in a courtroom, but he was always fun at the dinner table. And he was surprisingly endearing in an oddball way.

Valerie’s two girls from her first and only marriage, Angie and Mary Alice, were on the edges of their seats, hoping for a fun disaster . . . like Grandma Mazur setting the tablecloth on fire or Albert Kloughn spilling hot coffee into his lap.

Grandma Mazur was happily sipping her second glass of wine. My mom was at the head of the table, all business, daring anyone to find fault with the chicken. And my dad shoveled food into his mouth and acknowledged me with a grunt.

“I read in the paper where aliens from a different galaxy are buying up all the good real estate in Albany,” Grandma said.

“They’ll get hit hard with taxes,” Kloughn told her. “They’d be better to buy real estate in Florida or Texas.”

My father never raised his head, but his eyes slid first to Kloughn and then to my grandmother. He muttered something that was too low to carry. I suspected it was in the area of good grief.

My father is retired from the post office and now he drives a cab part-time. When my grandmother came to live with my parents, my mother stopped storing the rat poison in the garage. Not that my father would actually take to poisoning my grandmother, but why tempt fate? Better to store the rat poison at cousin Betty’s house.

“If I was an alien I’d rather live in Florida anyway,” Grandma said. “Florida has Disney World. What’s Albany got?”

Valerie looked like she was ready to drop the baby on the dining room floor. “Get me a gun,” Valerie said. “If I don’t go into labor soon I’m going to shoot myself. And pass the gravy. Pass it now.”

My mother jumped to her feet and handed the gravy boat to Valerie. “Sometimes the contractions are hardly noticeable in the beginning,” my mother said. “Do you think you could be having hardly noticeable contractions?”