Sunday dinners at my aunt's house required a specific kind of bravery — not because of the food, which was always good, but because of the questions, which arrived between courses like uninvited cousins.
"Bring the good knives," she'd say on the phone beforehand, which meant: bring yourself prepared to be carved into, gently, by people who loved you.
I went anyway, every Sunday, for years. I think now it was because being known badly by people who tried was better than the alternative — being unknown perfectly by people who didn't.
The good knives stayed in a drawer at my own apartment now, mostly unused. I keep meaning to host a Sunday of my own. I keep finding reasons the knives can wait one more week.