I spent 6 hours cooking Thanksgiving dinner. At 7 pm, my son arrived with 6 guests from my daughter-in-law’s family. They sat down like they owned my home. My DIL said, “Would you mind eating in the kitchen, Dad?” I just smiled and walked into the kitchen… what I did next had everyone screaming. – usnews

By 7:30, the table was full.

Not with performance, not with careful arrangements and managed warmth, and the particular strain of people pretending to be somewhere they have decided belongs to them.

It was full of the noise that rises naturally when people are genuinely glad to be in the same room.

Darnell was telling a story about a job site in August that had gone sideways in ways that were funny, only in retrospect.

Pete disagreed with his account of the timeline, which produced an argument that was really just two men enjoying the same memory from opposite ends.

Clark and Ben were talking about something involving county property tax assessments that I did not follow closely, but that seemed important to them.

I had set one extra place at the far end of the table, a plate and a glass and a folded napkin, an empty chair.

Vic noticed it when he sat down.