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for bootlegging. You can drink your wine right out in the open. Here—just a little one. Now, the children must wash their hands. And Ashleigh, will you please light the candles?"
    I didn't have a clue what Mom was talking about. I looked at Crystal. She was looking at Dad. Dad raised his eyebrows at Ashleigh. Ashleigh smiled at me and gave a tiny shrug. We all followed Mom down the hall in silence.
    The table wasn't set in the kitchen. Instead, Mom led us to the formal dining room. I think I've eaten in that room only once or twice in living memory. The table was large and round, and now it was covered with a white cloth. Mom had set it with the silverware and plates and glasses that usually stay in the china closet. On a normal day we just grab forks from the drawers in the kitchen and eat in there. And we always,
always
watch the news or whatever while eating.
    We all sat down. Crystal had her arms crossed like she meant to keep them that way. Dad was looking intrigued, as if this might be a surprise birthday party or something. Only Ashleigh had a little smile on her face, but she could afford to because it wasn't
her
mom who was being so strange.
    I felt like we were out visiting people we didn't know very well. My knees bumped Mom's under the table. She turned to me and nodded. "Connor, will you please say grace?"
    What was she on about now? "Grace," I said obediently.
    "No, honey," replied Mom patiently. "It's a prayer. A prayer thanking God for our food."
    I looked to Dad for help, but he was looking at Mom. So was Crystal. So was Ashleigh.
    "Go on," prompted Mom.
    "Okay." I remembered a movie I saw where there was a preacher or a rabbi or something standing up in front of a lot of people. "Dear Lord," I said in a loud voice that would reach to the very back of that kind of huge room. "Thank you for all this food. It smells really good." I glanced at Mom.
    She smiled encouragingly. "Amen."
    "Oh yeah.
Amen
," I added.
    Crystal cleared her throat. "I'm getting really freaked out."
    Mom started passing around platters of food that smelled, well,
heavenly.
Roast chicken with a tomato sauce, and mashed potatoes that I knew were the real thing, not the dried cubes or fake potato flakes that you mix with boiling water. I'd seen Mom with those potato peelings as proof. And there were green beans—real, fresh ones, not the frozen kind—cooked with lots of onions, and fluffy rolls and butter.
    For a strange, shivery second I felt like I was in that painting in the art book. I looked at the door to the kitchen like maybe that grandma from the painting would waltz in with a big birthday cake. Then Crystal passed me the potatoes and broke the spell. Mom poured herself a glass of wine and held the glass up to the candlelight.
    "Ah," she said. "Look at that sparkle." She took a sip. "Lovely, really delicious. That's what those Temperance folks forget—how perfectly delicious wine is. In moderation, of course. All things in moderation."
    Crystal kicked me under the table. I kicked back because how was
I
supposed to know what Mom was talking about?
    Dad raised his glass to Mom in a toast. "Kids, Mom is referring to the Temperance Movement," he told us. "In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, there was a push to do away with alcohol because it was thought to erode decent family values. The movement led to Prohibition—the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution—banning the sale and consumption of alcohol. It went into effect in 1920, I think I remember learning, and was repealed in 1933 or thereabouts."
    Mom raised her glass to him. "Is that when they finally got rid of it? Such a silly law. One of the few bad things about the good old days."
    "What good old days, Ms. Rigoletti?" asked Ashleigh.
    Mom set down her glass. Her expression was composed, as if she'd been waiting for just such a question. "My dear ones," she began in her firm, lawyer voice, "we're going to turn right
now
into the