I poured the tea and set her cup on the counter.

The tin was down to dust, and I scraped the last of it out with the back of a spoon.

Helen blew across the rim, then looked out the window over the sink toward the driveway.

“Not one car out there,” she said.

“Not one duffel bag left on the walk.”

I turned my cup a quarter inch and lined it up with the seam in the granite.

“Your boy’s big van get swallowed by the earth, or did they just go?”