So I kept my mouth shut.”

“Do you still have that yellow carbon transfer receipt, Dad?”

“I kept a photocopy in my toolbox at home,” Bob said.

“I never showed it to your mother.”

At six that evening I stood at the kitchen counter peeling potatoes into a blue ceramic bowl.

Zane came in through the mudroom door with his silver tape measure and his leather inspection binder.

He left his work boots by the mat and cleared his throat loudly before he hung his heavy canvas jacket in the front closet.