Sunday Jonah called and Ruth stood in the yard so the house would not overhear her become a mother. She told him the truth in a size he could carry. Two cards. A week of waiting. Grandpa still telling jokes that landed. No, she did not need him to drive down. Yes, she would say hello. She put Arthur on. He told Jonah about the hawks and about the clock he had drawn and about how the hands had tried to leave early. He did not mention the bank. When he gave the phone back he said, "He's a good boy. He listens like a person who intends to use what he heard. Don't put him on a side. Sides are how a family goes bankrupt without spending a dollar."
"I won't," Ruth said, and hoped it was a promise she could keep past Thursday.
Caleb, who had heard the end of it from the steps, said, "He can be on my side if the side is supper. I'm making chili. Nobody resigns from chili."
They ate the chili. They watched a detective show Arthur followed better than either of them. They went to bed in the house that was not sold. Ruth lay under the quilt and thought of the practice sentence in the margin of the crossword. I wanted a day that was mine. She understood it. She did not yet know the uglier sentence. She was afraid she would recognize herself in it. She was afraid she would recognize Caleb. She was afraid, most, that she would recognize their father and would not be able to make him into a person who had been captured by one of his children. If he had done it himself, then the story she had brought on the plane, the story of rescue, would have to sit down and be smaller. She did not sleep easily. She slept.
Thursday came in a rain that was more mist than decision. The pear tree dripped on the braced gutter and the sound was almost polite. Arthur wore the blue shirt and the coat buttoned correctly, and he carried nothing. Caleb drove. Ruth sat in the back with her father because he asked her to, and because the asking was not a verdict. The rental stayed in the drive, white and temporary, collecting a fine beading of water. At a red light Arthur watched the windshield wipers and said, "Don't help me with the first sentence. If I stall, let it stall. Denise has seen worse. She has seen people who only come in to shout."
"We know," Caleb said.
"You know too much and too little," Arthur said. "That's the job. Drive."
The conference room was the same room. The mahogany held the same vanity. The blinds were half open, and the parking-lot light came through in softer stripes because of the cloud, gray-bright, not the hard gold of the week before. Someone had set out three water glasses this time, which Ruth noticed and did not comment on, a small institutional kindness. Denise was already there. She had the folder. She did not have the look of a woman who had prepared a winner.