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“Now?” Jake said.

He was already in the foyer, getting his coat. He didn’t explain his decision, and before Jake got to the coat rack, the back door had closed.

“Jacob,” his mother said. “Let’s get this cleared.”

Jake ran the water. Kathleen and I started gathering the coffee cups, sugar bowl, creamer, and the other things that were still on the table. The light outside was the dusky color it goes at four o’clock in December. Across the yard, the shop lights came on.

As she reached for a serving spoon, her sleeve caught a fork and it fell under her chair. “Oh, for heaven’s⁠—”

“I’ll get it,” Jake said from the sink.

“Oh, stop. I dropped it, I can get it.” She lowered herself to the floor and got on all fours. “Got it.”

But then she didn’t come up.

“Mom?”

“Nico,” she said after a few seconds, from under the dining table. “Can you come here, please?”

I sent a silent question to Jake, who had a plate in his hand from rinsing dishes. All he did was shrug. I pulled a chair out and joined her under the table.

Kathleen had one hand braced on the leg. She was looking up at the underside of the top, and her fingers rested right on it.

His mark. Burned into cherry six inches from the leg, on Christmas Eve, with her son at my side.

“What does it say?” she said.

“His initials.”

“Your grandfather’s.” It wasn’t a question. We’d already spent most of dinner talking about him.

“Yes.”

She kept her fingers on it, tracing the outside of the pattern once. She was delicate about it.

“And this part?”

“That’s his, too. He designed that grain element himself. He was younger than I am now when he made it.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s gone. A long time now.”

She didn’t say she was sorry, which I appreciated.

“Does Jake know you put it here?”

“He watched me do it.”

“Hm.” It was the exact sound her husband makes. I wondered which of them got it from the other.

I stayed with her as she continued to study the mark.

“Nobody’s ever going to see this,” she said.

“No.”

“You put it where nobody looks.”