And from somewhere behind her, my brother’s voice boomed cheerfully into the microphone: “Tell the old man to hold out until Tuesday!”

Raymond heard it.

He was lying a few feet from me, and he heard his stepson’s voice come laughing out of the phone, and he did not flinch, because a man cannot flinch at a thing he has already accepted.

I was about to end the call when my mother delivered her last instruction, tossed off lightly, as though she were reminding me to water the plants.

“And if something happens to him before we’re back,” she said, “handle the arrangements yourself.

That’s what the responsible daughter is for.”