Dinner where nobody has anywhere to be is rarer than it seems at sixteen.

An unhurried family meal depends on nobody having a shift, a practice or a deadline inside the next two hours. At sixteen that still lines up fairly often, which makes it feel standard, and the alignment gets harder every year as people take jobs, move out and build separate schedules. Nothing dramatic happens; the calendars simply stop overlapping. You are living in the easy period.

Stay at the table a little longer this week rather than getting up the moment you are finished. Ask something. The meal is not the scarce part; the hour after it with nobody leaving is.