A Secret Society

I used to think there was a security in sameness, even if the sameness was not a happy one. The day my father died, we were doing the same thing we always did. We'd been playing five-card draw around the kitchen table, and Susie, the baby, had asked if she could have her pennies back when we were done. My father glared at her, slapped down his cards on the flower-print oilcloth, and pushed back his chair from the table