THE DINNER

An uneasy silence hangs over the Tam house.

Gabriel Tam reads the evening edition of the newspaper while his wife Regan directs the house servants in preparing her husband's favorite meals. The supper will be a lonely one, however; there are no guests to share tonight's evening meal, and both Gabriel and Regan are quietly, calmly dreading the silence that will stretch between their awkward and polite conversations.

For River and Simon are not there to pick up the slack, to boost the conversations when they falter, to enliven the family table with their laughter, stories, and jokes.

Gabriel tells himself, as he has done so many times, that he did what he could for the two of them, and that it was Simon's own pig-headed blindness that prevented the plan from being carried out. River would have to suffer, but only for a little while, he had been assured. Then, she would go farther in her studies-- and her usefulness to the government-- than any Tam before her...

Or so her father had been promised.

He sighs and continues to read the paper.

His wife flits into the den and asks a brief, meaningless question as to how he would like his food to be prepared, and Gabriel gives her a stock answer that he doesn't have to put much thought into. He really doesn't care about his food that much. He doesn't look forward to eating meals with his wife at all.

All too soon, the meal is ready, and Regan and Gabriel smile at one another as they head for the dining room.

The food sits on the dining table, and as always Gabriel is struck by how out of place the large mahogany dining table looks with only two chairs pulled up to it. That table could easily seat ten people, but for this evening, only two chairs will be necessary. He looks over at his wife and he sees the look of apology in her eyes and he knows that she spent hours on the telephonix today, trying to invite some guests over to the