Then she said, “Nobody told him that.”
“Too long for what?”
Mom covered her mouth.
She leaned toward my phone.
“Ruth?”
“Yes?”
“Were you angry with him?”
“Sometimes.”
Mom closed her eyes.
“Were you angry with him?”
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Ruth continued.
“I still would’ve picked him up at the airport.”
***
After the call, Mom and I sat beside the blue chair for a long time.
A week later, I took the chair to my apartment.
Mom objected immediately.
I took the chair to my apartment.
“Annie, that’s your father’s chair.”
“I know, Mom.”
I put it at my kitchen table.
The next Sunday, Mom came for coffee.
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She stopped when she saw me sitting in it.
I put it at my kitchen table.
For a moment, I thought she’d ask me to get up.
She didn’t.
She sat across from me instead.
Dad’s faded photograph lay between us.
Mom turned it around and pointed to the woman beside the cooler.
“That’s the woman who raised him.”
Dad’s faded photograph lay between us.
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I studied the tiny figure.
The blue chair shifted beneath me and tapped unevenly against the floor.
Mom looked down.
“Still does that.”
“Yeah.”
She pushed the sugar bowl toward me.
