He looked down.
“They love the house.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“So does Rebecca?”
“Yes.”
“Then what else?”
He thought.
“We could repay part of your loan now and the rest over time.”
“How much now?”
“Twenty thousand without hurting anything important.”
“And the rest?”
“Monthly payments.”
I nodded.
“That sounds reasonable.”
His head lifted.
“You’d agree to that?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I want terms.”
He almost smiled.
“Peter has infected you.”
“Peter was right.”
“He’ll enjoy hearing that.”
“He already knows.”
Daniel laughed.
It was the first easy sound between us in days.
Then he became serious.
“Mom, there’s something I need you to understand.”
“What?”
“When I asked you to move in after Dad died, I wasn’t thinking about childcare.”
“I know.”
“I wasn’t thinking about money.”
“I know that too.”
“I was scared.”
I looked at him.
He swallowed.
“When Dad died, you sounded empty on the phone.”
I remembered those weeks only in fragments.
Condolence cards.
Casseroles.
Arthur’s coat hanging by the door.
Waking at three in the morning and reaching toward a side of the bed that would never be warm again.
Daniel continued.
“I thought if you stayed in Chicago, something in you would disappear.”
