Held it right up.”

The sedan pulled out then, slowly, and went east on the blacktop.

It didn’t turn around at the top of the hill the way a man going home to his wife would.

“You think I’ve had my head in the sand,” I said.

“I think you’re a father.” Frank wiped his hands down his jeans.

“Two different things, and one of them costs you.”

He drove off, and I finished the wagon alone.

Thursday night Claire came out with a five-pound bag of potatoes and said she would peel them if I fried them.

She had her hair pinned up and her sleeves rolled past her elbows, and she talked the whole time about a woman at the bank who had named her cat after a state senator.

I had turned the radio off before she got there.

She didn’t ask why.

“You’re quiet, Dad.”

“Just listening.”

She used the paring knife in short, hurried strokes, and the peels came off thick.