Sunday call, Greenfield

Sunday call. Dad got on for four minutes and told me about a tree that came down on the Wilcoxes' fence in the storm and what the insurance is doing about it, which is how he tells me he is alive. He does not do the subject directly. He never has. There is an entire category of information my father transmits exclusively through other people's property damage. Mum stayed on after he handed the phone back. She said the stairs are a lot for him now, said it quickly and then moved on, which is how she tells me things she has decided not to make a thing of. Then, not in a pushing way, she said that Hannah is only two hours away. Two hours. I know. I can do the arithmetic, Mum. I did not say that. I said something about the follow-up appointment and we moved on, and after I hung up I sat on the back step for a while and Biscuit came and leaned his whole weight against my leg, which is his entire emotional vocabulary and is weirdly effective.

Nothing, officially. That is the whole technique. She was saying that if something happens at three in the morning, one of her daughters can be there before breakfast and the other one cannot. And she would be horrified to hear it put that way and she would deny it, and she would also not take it back.