Four minutes about a transmission

Sunday call. Dad got on and talked for four minutes about a transmission — not his, a neighbour's, and the rebuild, and what the garage in Turners Falls charged versus what they should have charged. And then right at the end, with no change in tone at all, he said: are you all right down there. He has never asked me that. In thirty four years. He has asked whether the car is running, whether the roof is holding, whether Danny has work on, whether we need anything, which is a different question and is the one he knows how to ask. I said yeah Dad. And he said good. And handed the phone back to Mum. That is the entire exchange and I have been carrying it around for two days. I think what happened is that he went into hospital in May and found out something about the arithmetic of his own life and has started doing small uncharacteristic things, and this was one of them, and he will probably not do it again for another thirty four years. And I said yeah Dad. I have been turning that over. He crossed the entire width of how our family talks to ask me a direct question and I gave him two syllables and a name, and then got off the phone and cried in the pantry for the second time this year.