“I’m not coming back. This was the whole visit. I drove up here to ask you one question and you answered it, and I want you to understand that you answering it honestly is the only reason I’m not going to think about you as often as I used to.”

My mother nodded. And then she said, “You look like my mother did.”

I got in the car and drove forty miles and did not cry until I was in my own driveway.

Chapter 11 — Thomas Is Fine

I looked him up in February. I want it on the record that this was not noble and I knew it wasn’t while I was doing it.

Thomas Higgins is fine.

He lost the election in a landslide, which is true and which I have repeated in interviews. He lost his contracts, which is also true. He left town, which is true.