Chapter 8 — We Are Managing Fine

At half past eleven I carried a small grocery bag into my parents’ dining room, where my father sat with a stack of restaurant coupons spread around his plate, trimming one with a pair of scissors.

You didn’t need to bring anything, he said, glancing at the bag.

It was on sale, I said, which was the kind of thing we said to each other, small true sentences that kept the surface flat.

He set the bag beside his chair and went back to sorting the coupons into two piles, and I watched him, a dinner special in one hand, a takeout deal in the other, and I thought about how a man sorting restaurant coupons is a man who eats in restaurants.