"Dad, look at the date."
Caleb turned his card too. The Thursday date sat under a signature that wandered more than the March one, the R in Arthur lifting like a question, the final y dropping below the line the way it had started to do after Helen died. Caleb did not touch the signature. He only made the room look at it.
"Look at his signature," he said.
Ruth kept her eyes on her father. The parking-lot light cut his face into bands, bright and less bright, and in the less bright parts he looked like the man who had taught her to back a trailer, patient and exact. In the bright parts he looked like someone she had to protect from her brother, which was a thought so old it no longer announced itself as a thought.
"Who drove him here on Thursday?" she said.
Caleb's mouth moved before he found the sentence he was willing to spend. He had driven. They all knew he had driven. The question was not a question, and he would not dignify it by being the one to answer it. He looked at Arthur, and the look was not cruel. That was the part Ruth could never explain to anyone in Chicago. The look was a man asking to be told he had not invented the day.
"Say it, Dad."
Arthur's hand came up from his lap and stopped above the table, not touching either card. The skipped button gaped. Outside, a car alarm chirped once and thought better of it. He drew a breath that seemed to start lower than his lungs, down in the years.
"I signed because—"