In a way, I thought that might be a good thing, as it meant — with any luck — they’d be so occupied with all their various conversations that they wouldn’t notice I was keeping conspicuously silent. And after Paul said grace, which was a duty that seemed to have fallen to him over the years, we were occupied for a while with filling our plates and our wine glasses. Melissa was the only one under age, but it seemed my mother and Lance had decided to let her have at least one glass with the rest of us, because Kevin obligingly filled her wine glass to about the halfway mark before passing the chardonnay to anyone else who wanted it.
Since I was more of a red wine drinker, I waited for the pinot noir to make its way over to me, and tipped some into my glass before handing the bottle off to K
