Old Country Portraits

My lost sister used to try the trick with the tablecloth, waiting until the wine had been poured, the gravy boat filled, before snapping the linen her way smug as a matador, staring down silver and crystal that would dare move, paying no mind to the ancestor gloom gliding across the wallpaper like clouds of a disapproving front—no hutch or bureau spared, no lost sister sure the trick would work this time, all those she loved in another room, nibbling saltines, or in the kitchen, plating the last of the roast beef. How amazed they would be to be called to the mahogany room for supper, to find something missing, something beautiful, finally, they could never explain, the wine twittering in its half-globes, candles aflutter, each thing in its place, or so it seemed then, even though their lives had changed for good.