"I'm seventy-five, not blind," Mae said. "Claire, dear, your makeup is very nice—those winged lines, that peachy mouth that looks like you meant to be somewhere fashionable—but it won't hide a blush the size of Lake Champlain. And Jack, wipe that grin off before I accuse you of being happy, which would shock the county."
Claire laughed until her eyes watered and she had to dab carefully so as not to ruin what remained of her brown winged liner. Jack looked at her as if happiness were a dish he had forgotten how to plate and had just remembered the steps for, flour-dusted and imperfect and his.
They played another round of rummy. Mae told a story about Walter trying to deep-fry a turkey in 1952 and nearly inventing modern disaster. Jack told a story about burning an entire tray of dinner rolls his first week back from the service and Mae making him eat every charcoal brick as education. Claire told a story about her mother sending back a restaurant salad because the tomatoes were "emotionally inconsistent," and Mae laughed so hard she had to remove her glasses and wipe them on her apron.
The complication arrived on the second night, not as weather but as a knock that sounded like the past refusing to stay buried in Albany.