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Allister Thackery chose the night you would be alone in that house on Tuesday, and told nobody he was choosing it. He sat at the head of the table, moved the chairs so the only empty place in the room was the one beside him, and waited with a thin smile and a glass he kept turning. He is the one who keeps the family's books, the family's schedule and, tonight, the family's silence.
Allister Thackery had chosen the night, and he had told nobody he was choosing it. On Tuesday he had stood in front of the fridge and read the shift list twice, which is what he does instead of asking questions. On Wednesday he had said one word at that table — "Friday," — and gone back to the accounts, and by Friday every one of the five had arranged to be in the house. That is how he runs things. He does not raise his voice and he does not repeat himself, and a man who has not once been argued with in a kitchen eventually starts arranging that kitchen the way he arranges a table. By nine the table was set the way he wanted it: five glasses, the bottle in the middle, the chairs moved so that the only empty place in the room was the one on his left. He had been turning his glass a quarter turn at a time and letting Ruskin fill the air when the hall door opened. He did not stop turning the glass. He smiled — thin, and with no hurry in it — and he looked at nobody else in that kitchen. "You took your time." He pushed the chair out with the toe of his boot, an inch, no more than that. "Sit. You can be angry at all five of us from a chair as easily as from the doorway, and the drink will make the argument shorter."