I was seated near one end of a very long dining table. A few strangers were present. The table was covered by a cheap white cloth that looked like a giant napkin. The main meal had been eaten. In the distance, the salt and pepper shakers looked like windmills or towers, and seemed to be part of a large, rugged landscape. My mother was standing beside me, fretting about what had happened to her butterscotch pudding. As usual, she had poured it into the funny little champagne glasses we had when I was growing up. But the pudding was grainy, pale, and thin. When I asked her if she’d remembered the brown sugar, she was too heartbroken to speak. Then someone said, “Corn starch?” I looked around. That someone was me.