Chapter 16: One Sentence

Christmas lunch was ham again, because Tressa said you do not waste a ham, even a haunted one.

Craig had slept in his old room under the model airplanes, and he came down at noon in yesterday's shirt.

He took the chair at the far end, by the radiator, and nobody said good morning.

Tressa's husband carried in the rolls.

Tressa set the first plate in front of me and said, "Sit. Don't get up for anything."

It cost her something to say, and I let it.

Gene did not let anyone pick up a fork.

He sat at the head of the table with the tablet in front of him and then, slowly, pushed it a foot away.

He gripped the arms of the chair, and his jaw set the way it had in the agency office.

"Dad," said Rob. "Don't get up. You don't have to."

"Rob."

That was the tablet's voice, but Gene shook his head at it.

He put both hands flat on the table and stood.

He did it with no cane and no walker, with the whole family frozen around him.

His mouth worked.

The nine-year-old whispered, "Is Grandpa going to throw up?" and was hushed by two people.

Then Gene looked at his son, the oldest one, and a sound came out of him.

It was low and rusted.

It was the first time Rob had heard his father's real voice in three years.

"Rob," Gene said. "Thirty-nine."

Rob's face came apart in the middle.

Gene turned his head, which took a long time, to Tressa.

"Tressa. Forty-one."

She did not breathe.

He turned the rest of the way, toward the radiator.