He won’t remember stepping in, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, Betty’s slow retreat to the kitchen. He won’t remember how the house has changed. It will stay in his mind as it was when he lived there: the living room with two tattered couches someone was always passed out on, sleeping off a binge or “just setting for a while” after a fight with wife or husband; the old oak floors clear and waxed, not covered with carpet to hide the blood-soaked wood; the kitchen and breakfast nook still painted white, with white linoleum tiles. So memory always murders the present. All he will remember is sitting there in the cramped kitchen, the coffee swirling to a standstill in the chipped mismatched rummage-sale mugs as the silence coasts between them. It isn’t a shared silence, not one tended, as fires are, throwing off invisible warmth.

“Ten years,” she says, shaking her head and then steadying it as she purses her lips to meet her coffee cup.

“Ten, yeah, well, that’s a long time,” he agrees.

He shifts his weight, broad shoulders dipping and leveling like the wings of a large bird.

“Where are the girls?”

“Irma’s off in San Diego, married. Got a kid, too.”

“Caroline here?”

“Oh my, my baby, no,” whispers Betty, her hand flying to her cheek as if she’s forgotten an ingredient in an often-used recipe. “No, she’s gone. Died three years ago now.”

“Ma, no. Really? How?”

“She was in a car. Got hit on the tracks up north. She didn’t hurt none. At least that’s what the doctor said.”

Four children, she thinks. Two of them dead, one ran off as soon as she could with the first white man who said he loved her, and the last one, Simon, lost somewhere in between. At least they lived long enough to outgrow their kid clothes. Seeing all the jumpers and tiny pants would be too much. At least they didn’t die when they were sucking on her tit or tugging at her skirt. They had more personality as children. After they hit their teens she can’t remember much about them, their dislikes and their loyalties, their habits. Merciful, maybe, that her mind deprived her of knowing her children when they were old enough to create their own hurt.

“Aw, damn,” says Simon, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry, Ma. I’m so sorry.”

“Ain’t got nothin to be sorry about. You couldn’t help that.”

They both breathe in heavily, great drinks of stale house air. As if such breathing were enough to shake out the chill of young death. Simon feels anger rising. Betty’s refusal of his sympathy makes him feel that his sister’s death is something Betty wants all for herself. Lester is one thing, but he is mad at her for denying him the right to be sad for his sister.