Again he stopped eating and looked up at Tess for direction. Now we were all certain that something was up. And that’s when I noticed that Aunt Rose was fidgeting beneath the table. Meaning, whatever was up, she was in on it. Uncle Jesse, who simply ate and ignored the conversation entirely, was obviously out of the loop. Typical. Still, my mother persisted with her line of questioning when she got no response from Sam.
“Now, I refuse to believe that your lives are so uneventful that you can’t think of one single thing to tell your Aunt Karen. After all, we’ve barely seen hide nor hair of each other in years.” She was adamant by that point. I think she was legitimately hurt by their lack of up-frontness. In any case, we were about to find out why.
Tess tried to back herself and her son o
