I had been beside him for three years.

The trouble wasn’t that every kind thing was false.

It was that kind things could not substitute for the acceptance he kept postponing.

“Do you want to be part of this household as it is?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“That is the answer I should have had before you told them you’d build again tomorrow.”

He turned toward the tomatoes.

Neither of us made sandwiches.