The family sat around a table. The father sat at the table’s head looking straight ahead at no one. Behind the father’s head there was a photograph of another man’s head, hairy. The man seemed to stare into the father. The father had not noticed this picture. The mother had taken the picture without asking, and hung it without asking, and if asked she would not be able to say when or where it was shot or whom it pictured. The only person at the table who knew whom the picture pictured was the son, though he would never look at the picture long enough to see.
The table was filled end to end with food. There was so much food on the table that there wasn’t any room for plates. The family picked the things they wanted out of the serving dishes, some of which were larger than their chests: pink meats and bruised fruit, slaws and sauces, all soft enough to eat without the teeth, pervaded by a common smell. No one knew who cooked the food. The father assumed it was the mother. The mother assumed it was someone else. The son didn’t think about it—he was already saying his own prayer in his head. The mother and the father waited for someone to say grace. They’d been saying grace for years together though they could not remember who mostly said it for them. They each kept waiting for one another to begin. Each time the father thought to speak up he’d feel like the mother was about to speak herself and so he’d stop and wait and then she wouldn’t. Under the table, the father rubbed his crotch seam with his thumb. He ate.
They ate. They were so hungry. There were all these hours. They chewed and chewed and then they swallowed. The food moved into the family through the flesh made from older food.
Some dishes were so hot no one could stand them. The son used his ring finger as a ladle and got scalded. The mark resembled the impression of a missing, inch-thick wedding band. The son sucked the finger with one side of his mouth and stuffed cooler food in on the other. He did not want to slow down in fear he might not get enough of something.