“He does not have the cushion you think he has, Clara,” she said, leaning closer to the window. “Do you really want to leave him with nothing?”
“He wants to help us,” I said, keeping my voice steady.
“He wants to keep you from crying,” she said, her voice sharp as the autumn wind. “Is that worth his entire retirement?”
She turned and walked toward her own car without waiting for my reply.
I drove home in the dark, the headlights catching the dry maple leaves as they swept across the blacktop.
When we got inside, Sophie was already half asleep, her head resting against my shoulder as I carried her to the sofa.
I laid her down under the blue wool blanket my father had knitted for her when she was a baby.
The blue travel form lay on the kitchen counter, still blank at the bottom, catching the dim light from the stove clock.
I took the ink pen from the kitchen drawer and slipped the blue paper into my purse beside the saline drops.
The clock on the wall showed twenty past six.
Sophie did not wake when I lifted her from the sofa, her cheek still pressed against the blue wool blanket my father had knitted for her.
