“And what happens if we don’t?” I asked, my voice hesitating.
She did not turn around. She kept her fingers busy with the twine, her shoulders stiff under her pink linen blouse.
“We don’t talk about those things, Natalie,” she said. “We just do what needs to be done.”
She picked up the shears and walked toward the side door of the house, leaving the spool of twine rolling slowly across the wooden table.
I stood up and followed her path back toward the house, the warmth of the sun feeling distant under the shadow of the tall pines.
In the hallway, the light through the stained glass fell in blue and yellow patches across the floorboards.
I reached for the door to our bedroom, needing to find Ethan, to ask him what his grandmother had meant.
The cold brass door handle slipped from my hand as I close out the morning sun.
The cedar-lined dressing room smelled of mothballs and Ethan’s pine grooming cream. He had two blue shirts laid out on the oak chest, their cuffs pressed, and was frowning at them as if they held the answers to a difficult test.
