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drink.
    Lil piped up, “Mr. Deal, are you all right?”
    Robert swallowed and tried to catch his breath. “Y-yes. And hello,” he said. “You’re Lilly. I saw you in the morning. I mean, across the highway lanes. When I rode on the back of Dewey.”
    Vince let out a laugh. I shot him a look, but I couldn’t really blame him for thinking it was funny. Robert made it sound like I’d carried himpiggyback down the highway.
    Robert looked at Lil and tried again. “Sorry. I mean, when Dewey gave me a ride.”
    Lil helped him out. “You rode the tandem.”
    “Yes. But tonight, I-I need to buy a bike,” Robert said. He held up our business card again.
    Lil got up from the table where she’d been chopping potatoes. “Okay then,” she said. “But it’s dinnertime and—”
    No, no, no, I thought. Don’t go being the parents now…oh, she’s going to turn him away….
    “I’m really sorry. I should have realized…” Robert said.
    “It’s okay. What I was going to say is, Dewey will help you with the bike. But not until you’ve cooled off, and not before we’ve all had supper. Together. We’ll set another place.”
    Okay, yes. Be the parents, Lil. You go! She sounded just like Mom and Dad, actually.
    “Oh, no. I can’t do that,” Robert said.
    “People come here for dinner all the time,” Angus said.
    “True that,” said Mattie. “ I sure do!”
    “And me!” Pop raised his hand.
    “You can stay,” said Eva. “I’ll even get another bowl.”
    I turned to Robert. “There’s a shower around the back of the house. It’s private. You can cool off and—”
    “I’ll find you something to wear. We’ve got a stash of old clothes in the basement,” said Lil.
    “He has that over-hotness disease, doesn’t he?” Angus said, leaning toward Pop’s ear. Just about everything the twins said made Pop laugh out loud.
    I took Robert around the back of the house as much to rescue him from my family and friends as to show him where the shower was. I grabbed a clean towel from the clothesline and threw it to him. “I’ll bring the clothes and leave them on the hook.”
    “Thanks,” he said. “I’m sorry for interrupting your dinner.”
    “That’s okay,” I said. “No problem.”
     
    “Okay, careful with the heat now,” Mattie said. Vince and I knocked the fire down. We slid theheavy pot over the grate. Mattie’s secret to great chowder was leaving the shells in. I liked the sound of them scraping against the pot.
    “Won’t be much longer now,” she said.
    Robert Deal came around from the back of the house looking less like a human tomato. He wore a loose T-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts that he had to hike up with just about every step.
    Lil looked him over. “Eh, maybe a little big. Best I could do.” She shrugged. “Feel better, Mr. Deal?”
    “Yes,” he said. “But will all of you just call me Robert? Please.”
    “Robert. Have a seat,” said Lil. “Angus, Eva, pass those napkins.”
    Vince and I grabbed the bowls and held them while Mattie filled each one with chowder, shells and all. We set them around the table and Lil dropped a lump of butter off a knife into each one.
    “Enjoy that butter, friends,” she said. “There won’t be any more until we get to the grocery store. And who knows how that’ll go in these new weird times,” she added. There was a collectivenod all around the table. But it was a nod that said more about enjoying that lump of butter now than it did about how long it’d be before we had another one. I had been missing Mom and Dad at dinnertime more than any other part of the day. It was good to have a crowd around the table.
    “You break bread, son.” Pop Chilly gave Robert a nudge.
    “That’s because you’re the guest,” Eva told him.
    “No. It’s because you have the cleanest hands,” Pop said.
    Robert fell right in, handing hunks of bread around the table. He looked at his bowl of chowder and said, “Spoons?”
    “Ah. It’s done like