“Has to what?”

“Acknowledge it. Every month. Forever. He has to sit in a laundry in Petersburg, Virginia, and forty-one dollars comes out and it goes to me and there is a piece of paper with both our names on it.”

My hands were doing something. “It’s the only thing in the world that’s still going in the right direction.”

“And what does it cost you?”

“Nothing. It’s forty-one dollars. It costs me nothing.”

Dr. Sandoval let that sit for a long time, which is how she says things.