 Why did nobody react when Henry's mother started crying at the table?
There he sat between the mayor and a nervous young coed chosen as homecoming queen, and looked out at the police and fire department bands, the National Guard, the boy scouts and girl scouts, the Elks and Masons. Several of the churches in town had shown indecision as to how to instruct their parishioners to treat him. The head of the American Legion and the chief of police, who had escorted him on this trip from the square, didn't ask to go in with him. They held onto each other as if seeking mutual support, the thirty-three-year old woman and ten-year-old boy. So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, that everything would loosen up just as his commanding officer, General Carlisle, had said it would early this morning before he left Washington. Carlisle had said his position was analogous to Columbus', to Vasco De Gama's, to Preshoff's when the Russian returned from the Moon—but more so. Without waiting for an answer, he waved his hand—it shook; a ten-year-old boy's hand that shook—and ran from the room and from the house. But they didn't expect it of him; they wouldn't let him; they felt he had changed too much. He saw twin beds separated by an ornate little table with an ornate little lamp, and this looked more ominous a barrier to him than the twelve-foot concrete-and-barbed-wire fence around the experimental station.
 They felt for her in all of the uncertainty and tension.
 They didn't understand what was wrong and felt too awkward to say anything.  They were too busy taking care of other details surrounding the meal.  They felt for her in all of the uncertainty and tension.  They were used to her tears and knew it was better not to say anything.