Jessi, is this thyme or is this oregano.

Jessi, sit down for five minutes, you’re making me tired.

She had raised Luca and his sister Dana mostly alone for six years while Arthur was working out of state, and she was intensely, uncritically proud of her son, and she talked about him in a way that used to make me smile and that I found, in the year after, almost impossible to think about.

And she had a thing she said, maybe four times a year, usually at a family dinner, usually when somebody else’s marriage was under discussion.