Chapter 10

• Grandpa is owed good things. He tells her this on occasion when he thinks she has forgotten — Your mind is a swamp of forgetfulness, girl, of memories bloated like dead fish in a watery grave. Her mind really isn’t. Her memories sit like pearls, perfectly polished, unbothered, untouched. She remembers more than Grandpa cares to believe, like how he finds Donald intolerable, thinks him scum, a dirty sewer rat — but Grandpa laughs with him throughout dinner like they are the best of friends — “You pain me, Donald,” Grandpa, red in the face, dabs his napkin in the corners of his eyes, “Truly pain me,” and eats his good meal because good things are owed to him, no matter where the good things come from.
• Jenny stabs the steak on her plate with a fork.
• She finds dinner intolerable. It is a parody of the last supper: a long table, well draped in a silk tablecloth the color of moonlight, planted in the middle of a private beach, waves licking the rocks like Donald’s guests lick their fingers, gluttonous, wolfish; she tastes sea salt on her tongue; it doesn’t mix well with the red wine. The food is plentiful. And Donald even hired a string quartet of violinists for the special occasion; they play sorrow; they play it all night.