of ebullience, a lack of
talkativeness, and Ralphie had always chosen mealtimes--especially with
company present--to describe everything and anything that had happened
to him during the day. And Edith herself had always chatted, especially
with his mother, though they didn't agree about much. Still, it had been
good-natured; the general tone of their lives had been good-natured.

This wasn't good-natured. Exactly what it was he wasn't sure. "Stiff"
was perhaps the word.

They began with grapefruit, Edith and Mother serving quickly,
efficiently from the kitchen, then sitting down at the table. He looked
at Mother as he raised his first spoonful of chilled fruit, and said,
"Younger than ever." It was nothing new; he'd said it many many times
before, but his mother had always reacted with a bright smile and a quip
something like, "Young for the Golden Age Center, you mean." This time
she burst into tears. It shocked him. But what shocked him even more was
the fact that no one looked up, commented, made any attempt to comfort
her; no one indicated in any way that a woman was sobbing at the table.

He was sitting directly across from Mother, and reached out and touched
her left hand which lay limply beside the silverware. She didn't move
it--she hadn't touched him once beyond that first, quick, strangely-cool
embrace at the door--then a few seconds later she withdrew it and let it
drop out of sight.

So there he was, Henry Devers, at home with the family. So there he was,
the hero returned, waiting to be treated as a human being.

The grapefruit shells were cleaned away and the soup served. Uncle Joe
began to talk. "The greatest little development of circular uniform
houses you ever did see," he boomed in his powerful salesman's voice.
"Still going like sixty. We'll sell out before--" At that point he
looked at Hank, and Hank nodded encouragement, desperately interested in
this normalcy, and Joe's voice died away. He looked down at his plate,
mumbled, "Soup's getting cold," and began to eat. His hand shook a
little; his ruddy face was not quite as ruddy as Hank remembered it.

Aunt Lucille made a few quavering statements about the Ladies' Tuesday
Garden Club, and Hank looked across the table to where she sat between
Joe and Mother--his wife and son bracketed him, and yet he felt
alone--and said, "I've missed fooling around with the lawn and the rose
bushes. Here it is August and I haven't had my hand to a mower or
trow