The meal stretched longer than any of them expected, mostly because Alyssa kept discovering new things her body could do and insisted on narrating each discovery in real time.
"I can reach the salt now," she announced, demonstrating by reaching across the entire table and dragging the small ceramic shaker toward her plate without so much as leaning. "Before I had to ask. Now I just reach!"
"Groundbreaking," Ariana said, not looking up from the folder she'd brought to the table, apparently incapable of fully disengaging from work even during a meal.
"It is groundbreaking, for me." Alyssa sprinkled an enthusiastic amount of salt over a piece of bread that did not need it, took a bite, and made a face. "Oh. That was too much."
"That tends to happen when reach outpaces judgment," Aaron said.
"I will get better at both," Alyssa said, with the confidence of someone who fully expected to master reach-based salt distribution by sundown.
