I got a salad at a fast-food place, enjoying the bustle and purpose of the people in the restaurant. It felt odd to be alone, though I didn’t mind so much after I watched (and listened to) a mother dealing with three preschool-age children at the next table. I wondered if Tolliver wanted to have children. I didn’t. I’d already had the care of two babies, my little sisters, and I didn’t want to go through that again. And I admitted to myself that while I didn’t want to be pushed out of my sisters’ lives, I didn’t want to be in charge of those lives, either.

Even after I saw the youngest boy give his mother a spontaneous hug and kiss, I didn’t warm up to the concept of carrying someone else inside my body. Should I feel guilty about that? Didn’t every woman want to have her own child to love?

Not necessarily, I thought. And God knows there are plenty of children in the world. I don’t need to supply another one.

Tolliver was awake and watching a basketball game when I walked into his room. “Mark called while you were gone,” he said.

“Oh, gosh, could you reach the phone?”

“It was my big adventure for the day.”

“What did he have to say?”

“Oh, that I’d made my dad feel bad, that he thought I was being an idiot for not welcoming Dad back to the land of the sober, with my arms open wide.”

I debated with myself for a minute before deciding to say what I thought. “Mark has a real weakness for your dad, Tolliver. You know I love Mark, and I think he’s a great guy, but he won’t ever really get it, about Matthew.”

“Yeah,” Tolliver said. “You’re right. He was nuts about Mom, and when she died, he kind of transferred that emotion to our dad.”

Tolliver didn’t talk about his mother a lot. Her death, from cancer, had to have been completely awful.

“I think Mark believes that Dad has to be good at heart,” Tolliver said slowly. “Because if Dad isn’t good, then he’s lost his last parent. And he has to have that relationship.”

“Do you think your dad is good at heart?”