I said what a man says.

Two nights.

Home Thursday, before her spelling test, and I would test her on the way to school Friday and she would beat me, because she always did.

And she said, “Okay,” and then she sat there.

I want to be exact about what happened next, because I have gone over it with a professional at some length and because it is the only thing in this entire account that I got right without help.

I did not leave the room.

There was a version available where I kissed the top of her head, said something warm, and walked out to a car.

I had done that perhaps two hundred times.

She would have let me.

She had decided, I found out much later, that if I picked up my bag she was not going to say anything at all.

Instead I put the milk down and sat on the stool across from her, because she had said okay in a voice I did not recognize.

“Nell. What’s up?”

And she looked at the doorway.

That is the part I still think about.