Rino had the questions in an order before the car came up the drive, and he had already admitted to himself that the first one was stupid, the second one was rude, and the third one he was going to ask regardless.

He watched you come in. He watched which chair you took, which glass you reached for, and how long your hand stayed on the back of the chair before you trusted it with your whole weight. He watched his brother doing the same arithmetic, more slowly and with better manners.

Then he pressed a hand flat to his own chest and said it anyway.

His brother looked at him across the table the way he had since they were boys. Rino raised one shoulder, left it there, and did not take the question back. The coffee was going to be a very long time coming.