“Yeah?”
“When the detectives got here, I was waking up from a nap. One of them was talking to the guards, and I heard his voice... I assumed it was your father.” Renee’s eyes glistened. A tear escaped. Robin grabbed a piece of Kleenex from the box at her bedside and dabbed at it, as though she were a child. She didn’t know what else to do.
“We had a fight,” Renee said in a small, choked voice. “We never fought, but we did that night, and it will always be the last thing we did together.”
“It’s okay, Mom.”
“It’s not.”
“You can say good-bye to him. Make your peace.”
“How?”
“Once you’re out of the hospital, I’ll take you to the cemetery.”
“We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“We’re supposed to wait a year. Then we have the unveiling.”
“Who cares what we’re supposed to do? An unveiling is a Jewish tradition, and you’re not even Jewish.”
“Dad is.”
“I guarantee you, it doesn’t matter to him now.”
Mom laughed a little. Then she started to cry. She cried silently, shoulders shaking, tears spilling down her face, her lip trembling like a child’s. Robin knelt next to her and put her arms around her, stroked her hair. She kissed her wet, salty cheek and wished she could think of the right thing to say, but there was no right thing.
“I keep telling myself he’s just away on a business trip—at a conference,” Renee said. “I dream that’s where he is. Over and over, I have this same dream, where he walks through that door and tells me his flight has been delayed. And then I wake up and there’s no one there, or maybe there’s a nurse, and my first thought is always the same. He’ll never walk through that door. I’ll never hear his voice. I’ll never see him again.”
“I know, Mom. I know.” Robin grabbed more Kleenex—a big wad of it—and handed it to her mother. She let her dry her own tears.
Robin said, “I spoke to Dad that night.”
“You did? Did he sound angry?”
“Not at all,” she said. “He didn’t even mention that you’d had a fight. He just said you went out to buy some coffee.”
Renee blew her nose. “That was your father,” she said. “He never wanted you to hear anything bad.”
“I should have come over and watched the Yankees with him. We could have waited for you to come home.”
“I’m so glad you didn’t.”
“No, Mom, no,” she said. “I mean... maybe if I’d have been around when it happened, I could have helped.”
“Don’t even say that.”
Robin looked at her mother. She was calmer now, her face dry, her breathing steady. “Mom.”
“Yes?”
“Why did you buy a gun?”
Renee’s eyes clouded for a moment, then cleared again. “What do you mean?” she said softly, gently. “I hate guns.”
“How are we feeling?” A freckle-faced nurse who looked about twelve stood just behind Robin, her timing horrible. “We just need to run a few tests and check our vitals.” The nurse peered at thescreen by her mother’s bed and took her pulse and temperature, taking notes after each step. She was fast and efficient, but to Robin, it felt endless.
