The sauce on the stove was a thick, dark red, bubbling in the center of the copper pot. Daniel stirred it with a long wooden spoon, his movements heavy and deliberate.

Noah stood by the sink, dried a blue ceramic plate with a yellow dish towel, and kept his shoulder turned away from his stepfather.

“We need three plates, Noah,” I said, reaching into the cupboard for the glasses.

My hand brushed against my left wrist, a habit I had not broken since selling my mother’s gold watch to pay the oil bill in August.

“Just two,” Daniel said, without turning around from the stove.

I stopped with my hand on the cupboard door.

“You are not eating with us?” I asked.

Daniel tapped his right thumb against his temple twice, his eyes fixed on the bubbling red sauce.

“I am just not hungry tonight after tasting the sauce all afternoon,” he said.

Noah did not look up, but his fingers began to roll the bottom hem of his grey t-shirt into a tight, wet spiral.

The old corded telephone on the pantry wall gave a brief, dry click, the way it always did when the line was damp.

Daniel turned the burner to low and wiped his hands on a kitchen towel.

“Clara, go out to the garage and find my three-foot level,” he said.

“The wooden one or the yellow metal one?” I asked.

“The metal one,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his black cell phone. “And give me your phone. I want us to have a dinner without any screens tonight.”

I took my phone from the counter and handed it to him.

He took both phones and walked toward the back door that led to the covered breezeway.

I followed him into the cold air of the October evening.

The smell of damp oak leaves was strong near the garage floor.

Daniel did not stop at the tool pegboard where he usually kept his levels.

He walked straight to the heavy steel toolbox that sat on the corner of his oak workbench.

It was a green chest with iron handles, something his father had left him.