The words were quiet.
Grace sat in the empty chair beside him.
For a minute they watched volunteers move boxes of water across the room.
“Is the house gone?” Raymond asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Your mother’s things–”
“Dad.”
He stopped.
Grace inhaled.
“I understand why you wanted them. I do. But I need you not to make me tell you the house matters less than you. I can’t do that conversation today.”
Raymond stared at his hands.
“Fair.”
Another word he rarely used when she challenged him.
Grace leaned back.
“What were you going to say on the radio?”
He looked toward the crowded room.
“I said I should have called.”
“You started another sentence.”
Raymond’s mouth tightened.
“I was going to say I was wrong.”
Grace felt anger before relief.
“About which part?”
He flinched.
Good, she thought, then immediately hated that she thought it.
But Raymond answered.
“About the funeral. About telling you not to come in uniform. About acting like you chose work over your mother because I needed somebody to blame for the last night.”
Grace’s eyes burned.
“I did miss the last night.”
“Yes.”
He did not erase the fact.
