The room went silent. That is not a metaphor. Eleven people, mid-conversation about eleven different things, went simultaneously and completely silent. My uncle Brian — my mother's brother, the man who had been my de facto father figure my entire life — put down his fork. My aunt Linda, his wife, started to say something and stopped. Casey, who was drunk but not that drunk, registered the silence maybe two seconds after the rest of us, and her face did the thing faces do when someone realizes they have just said the unsayable. My mother was on her knees on the hardwood floor, picking up shards of the gravy boat, and her hands were shaking so visibly I could see it from my chair. I said, "What does that mean?" Nobody answered. Casey looked at Brian. Brian looked at my mother. My mother did not look up from the floor. And I said, louder, "What does 'real dad' mean, Casey?"