Sublime

“He’s a salesman.

“Well, that’s the way I am,” Edith said. “He’ll have to get used to it, that’s all. That’s the way I am.” “That’s the way she is,” the other woman said.

“Aren’t you going to load it, Papa?” the boy Benny asked from behind.

How should a man act, given these circumstances? He understood things had been done. He did not understand what things now were to be done. The house was very quiet.

Every notch scratched in the kitchen door frame marked the growing up of someone now long dead.