sons had filled out an application.
My mother continued talking because silence makes her uncomfortable.
She listed the reasons it wasn’t her responsibility.
She and my father were retired now.
They had routines.
Garden club.
A cruise deposit that was non-refundable.
My father Roy was somewhere in the background. I could hear the television and the particular quality of his silence, the silence of a man who had convinced himself that saying nothing meant keeping his hands clean.
He didn’t pick up another phone.
He didn’t call me afterward.
My
