Web of Angels by Lilian Nattel

she pronounced, and Nina smiled. “My grandmother’s feet were bound and my father had to carry her when we were running away from the war. But you have strong feet. Never depend on anyone to carry you.”
    “Me! Me!” Emmie said. Her curly hair was done up in six small ponytails all around her head.
    “Let me see. Excellent feet. You wash every day? Good girl. Now you get cakes,” Mimi said, giving them a bag of Chinese buns. “Where’s Eleanor? She’s late.”
    “It’s not late. Girls—set the tables. That’s your job, remember?”
    “Ten after six. It’s late.”
    “I’m sure she’ll be here any minute. Josh!” Sharon called up the stairs as the bell rang. “See? Just stay there. I’ll get the door.”
    While the younger girls set the kitchen table and the folding table, Sharon ushered in her sister-in-law’s family. Bram lowered himself gingerly into the chair with the ObusForme tied onto it. Eleanor ran her hand through her big brother’s hair in greeting, just the way he hated it and had ever since they were kids. Judy showed Nai-Nai her brand new running shoes, and made kissy noises at Josh and Cathy when they came into the kitchen. Ignoring his guest for the moment, Mimi checked out her grandson, scolded him for going barefoot, and slipped some money into his pocket.
    “Thanks for finding my keychain, Mrs. Lewis,” Cathy said. “My flash drive was on it. I’d have died if I lost it.” She looked like a different child than the one who’d spoken at the memorial, her face no longer wan, her posture confident. But she was still jittery, easily startled, and Sharon didn’t want her mother-in-law making comments.
    “I doubt that. Get the folding chairs, Josh.”
    “I want to see if supper’s any good first.” He stuck a spoon into one of the pots.
    “Listen to your mother. You have lucky ears but this isn’t China,” Mimi said sharply. She turned to his girlfriend, but Sharon was already settling her at the kids’ table, the little girls fighting over who got to sit next to her.
    Finally everyone was seated, the adults at the blue table, the kids at the folding table, made presentable by a floor-length tablecloth. Outside in the yard, darkness had not yet descended and evening light touched the floor, making it shine under their feet as Sharon took the chair closest to the kids, facing the outside. Dan sat opposite, undisturbed by having his back to a door, having no thought of anyone coming through it unasked. He’d just showered, and his hair stood on end as it dried. He wore jeans, of course, as he was at home, and a cotton shirt, perfectly pressed, smelling of fabric softener. This was what he loved about his wife: that she made his life smell good, that she brought his people into the house.
    Dan’s parents were on one side, his sister and her husband on the other. Bram shifted in his seat, trying to make himself comfortable with the ObusForme. He liked wiring. You started at one end and you traced the wire wherever it went, no matter how torturous the path, until its end. If it wasn’t up to code you pulled it out and replaced it. People were dismayed when he gave them the bad news. Illegal patching through knob and tube. Faked grounding. Even worse—aluminum. Hidden behind the walls, a waiting fire. So he never showed that it excited him to remove the thin crackling wire from its twisted path and construct something strong and sound, a clear and logical network for electricity to safely travel, its power channelled, harnessed. In his private imaginings it was a wild horse and he was the horse whisperer.
    Dinner was meatless as Mimi was doing battle with the universe. Organic vegetables, beans, tofu, rice and Chinese herbs were going to fix her husband’s brain. Only warmfoods, nothing cold because he had too much yin, the dark dank feminine principle. In a more superstitious time, she might have suspected a fox spirit of sucking out his male vitality. She might have prayed