SCARLET ♠️
Saturday dinners at the Benson family home had a structure.
They had always had a structure. Ruth ran her household the way she ran everything, with precision and intention and the specific authority of a woman who had decided long ago how things were going to be and had not been seriously challenged on it since. Arrival between six-thirty and six-forty-five, not later, not significantly earlier. Drinks in the sitting room first. Dinner at seven-thirty on the dot, no exceptions. The table was set with the good china that came out specifically for these occasions, which was Ruth’s way of communicating that this was not casual, this was the Benson family in session, and you were expected to arrive accordingly.
I had attended approximately three hundred and eighty of these dinne
