“The heat is set at sixty-eight,” I said.

“Lucy is in class at Oak Ridge Elementary, and Evan is at work.”

Margaret turned and straightened her floral cloth scarf.

“I came because three weeks of this silence isn’t healthy for anybody.

Family doesn’t cut off contact over one argument.”

She held the pink card out to me.

I kept my hands flat against the sides of my thighs and made no move to take it.

“I tucked a fifty-dollar check inside for Lucy’s school clothes,” Margaret said.