I touched my right cheek with my fingertips, feeling the tender swelling where the bruise remained.

“What do you want to do, Loretta?” David asked.

I smoothed my blue cardigan down with both thumbs, my eyes fixed on my son’s turned head.

“I worked thirty years of second shifts at the shoe factory to give him a clean start, David.”

“I remember,” David said softly.

“He has become a hollow stranger in his own house,” I said.

My voice stayed slow and deliberate, not rising an inch.