He told them we had come by the house. He told them we had looked through the window. He told them I had seen the photographs.
Carol asked to meet us the next morning.
We drove back. The children stayed with my mother, who lived an hour in the other direction and who received my call with the particular efficiency of a grandmother whose daughter’s voice tells her the situation is significant before the words confirm it.
Carol and David were waiting on the porch. The porch with two chairs. The porch from Nate’s childhood stories where David read the newspaper every evening.
Carol was sixty-one. She looked older than sixty-one in the way that women look older when they have been carrying something for decades and the carrying has been performed without assistance. David was sixty-three. He sat in his chair. He held a coffee mug. The mug was the only thing in his hands that was not shaking.
