"If he falls," Caleb said.
"Then we are both here," Ruth said.
They followed. The three of them made an awkward procession on the sidewalk, Arthur in front, his children not quite beside him and not quite a team. Linden in early October was doing what it always did: hanging on to summer in the color of the mums outside the hardware store, giving up in the color of the sky. A banner for the high school homecoming hung from the lamppost, the year painted in a gold that would run in the first real rain. Caleb glanced at it and away. He had taught in that building. He did not say so. Ruth did not ask.
At the diner, the booth by the window was free, which Arthur took as proof that the day had not entirely seceded from him. The vinyl was the red of old apples. The laminated menu still had the grilled cheese he ordered when he did not want to be fussed over. Ruth slid in across from him. Caleb took the outside of her father's side, the place a person takes when he is not sure whether he is a guard or a son. The waitress, who had known Helen, did not ask how they were. She brought three coffees and a small metal pitcher of cream and said, "Pie is peach until it's gone," and left them with the kindness of no further speech.
Arthur stirred his coffee though he had added nothing to it.
"I'm going to say some things you won't like," he said. "Not the because. I'm not ready to finish that. If I finish it in a booth it'll be a smaller sentence than it is. You can sit here or you can make it a trial. If it's a trial I'll go home and lock the door and you'll both stand in the yard like Jehovah's Witnesses."
"We wouldn't," Ruth said.
"You would," he said, almost fond. "You get it from your mother. She could make a locked door feel like a question you were failing."
Caleb wrapped his hands around the mug. "Say the things, then."