So on the first Sunday in November, I put a brisket in the oven, and I texted him four words.
Come to dinner. Four-thirty.
He arrived at 4:15, in a flannel shirt, with lemon bars in the same kind of tin.
He stood on my porch like a man waiting to be sentenced.
I opened the door.
“You’re early,” I said.
“I was afraid you’d change your mind.”
“I almost did.”
“I know,” he said. “Thank you for not doing it.”
He sat at the corner of my kitchen table, in the chair he had occupied for ten years, and Ben put a plate in front of him, and for a moment, none of us knew where to look.
Then Ben said, “Grandpa David, can you show me how to tie a blood knot? I’m trying out for the fishing club.”
And David had to put down his fork.
The divorce was final in March.
