My father didn’t move.

He kept his eyes on Ethan.

Ethan reached out, his thumb resting for a second on the key ring in his pocket.

He picked up the phone by its plastic edge, pressed the side button to silence the ringer, and laid it back face down on the polished wooden table.

Ethan sat in the vinyl desk chair in hotel room 214 and pulled a folded sheet of lined paper from his jacket pocket.

Noah sat on the thin carpet near the corner lamp, tugging at the soft blue fabric of my father’s dress trousers.