Tete a Tete avec Ma Tante

You can imagine the drama involved with having five younger sisters.

I sidestep a lot of it neatly by living in Richmond, my father's home town, while my sisters live in Maryland.

So when the family goings-on are at fever pitch like they are now, I do the sensible thing.

I stay clear and I meet my aunt in Fredericksburg for lunch.

She's twelve years older than me and twelve years younger than my Dad, meaning she's hardly a traditional aunt.

It had been a while, so it was good to see her smiling face when I arrived at Bistro Bethem.

She already had her wine and I just barely ordered a glass of Tempranillo when she said, "Go!"

After the second time the server came over, my aunt explained to her, "We're solving dysfunctional family problems. You may want to give us some time."

They graciously did, returning 45 minutes later to finally take our order and ask how things were going.

By then, we'd joined the Jamestown colonists in the starving time and put our orders in.

She wanted an oyster po'boy, but wasn't going to miss the tacos made of backyard-smoked pulled pork, pickled vegetables,creme fraiche in two grilled corn tortillas with a tasty little side salad.

Because there's no pig like backyard-smoked pig.

Good as it was, food played second fiddle to a robust round table.

It's fascinating to have someone slightly older who watched your family grow up and can share memories and impressions impossible for me at the center of a six-girl storm.

Let's just say I now have a much better idea why certain sisters are the way they are.

Once we hit the two-hour mark, the rest of the customers had cleared out and it was just us and the staff, beginning to prep for dinner.

We were offered dessert and with coconut cake on the menu, it was an easy decision.

No matter how often I have their coconut cake, it always takes me back to my first one, which my grandmother had set out on the fire escape when I first came to visit her Colonial Avenue apartment as a child.

My Irish twin ( the sister 13 months younger than me) and I had been put on a train from Washington to Richmond to visit my grandparents and college-age aunt for a week.

I found their Richmond apartment a marvel of woodwork, high ceilings and with fire escapes, a wholly new concept to me.

That she kept cakes out there because of limited counter space seemed exotic, although once I moved onto Floyd Avenue in 1993, I understood completely.

You take counter space where you can with an early 20th-century kitchen.

As my aunt and I sat there picking up all the last bits of coconut off the plate, she ruminated, "I wish my mother could be here for a conversation so I could talk to her with what I know now."

I heartily agreed.

And I feel certain she'd lecture me to tell my sisters to just get along now while we still can.

And then she'd tell me my skirt was too short.