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"About what happened in New Hampshire," I said. Because I figured that this was part of his plan: he'd get me to admit to the bad things I'd done rather than have him say them for me. This was a parental tactic: whenever Katherine or Christian did something wrong, we always made them identify their crime themselves, which then served as the appetizer to the main course of their punishment.

"New Hampshire," Mr. Mirabelli said. "It's funny you should say that, Coleslaw. I once followed a guy to New Hampshire."

"Thomas told you where I was going," I said, then shot what I hoped was an angry look at Thomas. Thomas didn't seem to care what was going on around him, though. He maintained a look of perfect contentment, obviously so happy to be allowed just to sit there at the head of the table and say, "Boola, boola, boola," at the appropriate moment and to act as though he belonged.

"I don't need anyone to tell me how to follow a guy," Mr. Mirabelli said. I remembered now that my father-in-law had been a claims investigator for thirty-plus years and had followed people for a living. No, Mr. Mirabelli wouldn't have needed Thomas's help to follow me up to New Hampshire, but I bet Detective Wilson would have needed the help. And I bet Thomas had given it to him.

"It was cold in New Hampshire," Mr. Mirabelli said. "I didn't like it much."

"I know," I said.

"You know?" he said. "How do you know, Coleslaw?"

"I know that's where you saw me kiss that woman."

"You kissed a woman, Coleslaw?"

"I don't even know her name," I admitted.

"Doesn't matter to me who you kiss, Coleslaw." Mr. Mirabelli said this in a way that sounded so nonchalant that it couldn't possibly have been nonchalant, as though Mr. Mirabelli had practiced saying it in the mirror before I'd arrived. "Does it matter to anyone else who Coleslaw kisses?"

Everyone, even Christian, shook their heads to indicate they didn't care who I kissed, which, under other circumstances, might have been nice of them, might have felt liberating. Thomas helped himself to another heaping spoonful of rice. Mrs. Mirabelli lifted her veil, reached out for a platter of what appeared to be wet garbanzo beans, scooped up three beans, and then, maybe thinking of her figure, put two of them back on the platter and one in her mouth, which she gently sucked on as if it were a delicate gum ball. Christian sat there, slack jawed, towel in his hand as though ready to wipe the drool that might come from his slack jaw.

"As far as we're concerned," Mr. Mirabelli said, "you can kiss whoever you want, Coleslaw."

"Except us," Mrs. Mirabelli said.

"You can kiss anyone but us, Coleslaw," Mr. Mirabelli said. "There are apparently some limits to who you can kiss, Coleslaw."

"Why do you keep calling me that name?" I asked him. I glanced again at Christian: his towel was now somewhere out of sight, and he was still wearing that slightly bewildered look, as though things were happening in a place where he could see and hear them but not understand them.

"I don't know what else I'm supposed to call you, Coleslaw," Mr. Mirabelli said.

"My name," I said. "Sam!"

"Who?" Mr. Mirabelli asked, and then looked one by one at Thomas and his wife and his grandson, and each of them in turn asked, "Who? Who? Who?" like inquisitive owls, even Christian, although I couldn't and didn't blame him, because what kid doesn't like to make animal noises? By the time the table was through asking who "Sam" was, I was starting to wonder myself. Which, I was now understanding, was the point ― that I was no longer a son-in-law to them but was only a stranger with a strange name ― and as with all points, I found myself thinking fondly of the time, a few moments earlier, when I didn't understand it.

"Where is Anne Marie?" I asked. "I need to talk to Anne Marie."

"We were just talking about her before you got here, Coleslaw," my father-in-law said.

"What were you saying about her?"

"That she's tough," Mr. Mirabelli said.

"She is," I said, agreeing with