That mattered, in a way I did not let myself think about directly, until I had to.

“She said something to my daughter today,” I told him, when I finally got the words out.

“About getting big.

About cookies.” There was a silence on the line so long I thought the call had dropped.

Then Lowell said, in a voice I had not heard from him since we were children, flat and very far away: “What did she say.

Exactly.