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The cupboards locked, the kitchen swept clean with a broom of pine twigs, the children each dressed in their one good outfit — a sleight of hand transforming a band of free-range ragamuffins into a sort of pocket-sized town council — the sun creeping down, down, down toward the boreal horizon, and at last none of us could deny it: Jonathan wasn’t coming.
So now it only remained to tell Mom.
I tried first, because I’m weak.
“Don’t you think it’s time to go get Dad?”
“Miriam, your father’s tired,” she told me. Which is one way to say dying of cancer, I suppose. She was setting the table, for the third time. “Besides, your brother will be here any minute. T... Read more
