The father of a classmate at school has died, a few weeks ago. Shocking, but mysterious. What do you say?

You say nothing. Nothing to say. Avoid the girl, not a friend of yours anyway.

As, at school, your friends have begun to avoid you.

Pretending not to notice. Not to care. Hiding in a toilet stall dabbing wetted tissues against your face. Why are your eyelids so red? So swollen?

But now you have begun to be frightened. You wonder if you should seek out your mother. Mom? Daddy is still in the car, he has been out there a long time . . . But the thought of uttering such words, allowing your parents to know that you are spying on them, is not possible.

And then, this happens: you see someone leave the house almost directly below, and cross to the car in the driveway.

Is it—your mother?

She, too, must have been standing at a window, downstairs. She’d seen the headlights turning into the driveway. She’d been waiting, too.

Slipping her arms into the sleeves of someone’s jacket, too large for her. Bare-headed in light-falling snow that melts as soon as it touches the pavement, and her hair.

It is brave of Mom to be approaching Daddy, you think. You hold your breath wondering what will happen.

For you, your sisters, and your brothers have seen, numerous times, your father throwing off your mother’s hand, if she touches him in a way that is insulting or annoying to him. You have seen your father stare at your mother with such hatred, your instinct is to run away in terror.

In terror that that face of wrath will be turned onto you.

You are watching anxiously as, at the car, on the farther side of the car where you can’t see her clearly, your mother stoops to open the door. Tugging at the door, unassisted by anyone inside.

And now, what is your mother doing? Helping your father out of the car?

You have never seen your mother helping your father in any way, like this. You are certain.

At first, it isn’t clear that Daddy is getting out of the car. That Daddy is able to get out of the car.

It has become late, on Black Rock Street. A working-class neighborhood in which houses begin to darken by 10:00 P.M.

In early winter, houses begin to lighten before dawn.

Up and down the street, in winter, when the sun is slow to appear, windows of kitchens are warmly lit in the hour before dawn. You will remember this, in your exile.