Caleb washed an apple he was not going to eat. The water ran.
"He packed a suitcase at five in the morning," he said. "Thursday. He had his good shoes and the checkbook and a map of Illinois from 2009. He told me you wanted him on a train. He told me the house was already listed. He was shaking. Not the way he shakes when he's cold. The other shake. I made eggs. He didn't eat them. He said if we waited for you to fly in, you would arrive with a woman in a blazer and a clipboard and he would be gone by supper. Those were his words. Gone by supper. I have heard clipboard talk from you. Don't pretend I haven't."
"A care manager is not a clipboard."
"To him it is. To me it was, the first time you said it, a person who would walk through this kitchen and write down the chickens as a risk."
The water still ran. He shut it off.
"I drove him because he asked me to drive him," Caleb said. "I am not going to stand in this kitchen and tell you I was only a chauffeur. I wanted the card. I wanted you off it. I wanted one piece of the day that did not require your signature from two hundred miles away. If that makes me the villain in the story you tell Jonah, fine. Write it down. Just don't say I forged him. I won't survive that one. I'll survive the others."
Ruth held the back of the chair. The crowd on the television rose and fell.
"I didn't say forged."
"You asked who drove him. In that room, that's the same sentence."