“Clean,” I said.

“That’s all.” He looked at me, and for a second his face was the old face, the one that used to squint at me over the Sunday paper.

Then it closed up again.

At the front door he stopped and looked back at the kitchen.

“You can keep the coffee maker.

I never liked it.”

“The children gave us that coffee maker.”

“I know who gave it to us, Patty.”