“I’m going to be mad at you for a long time.”
“Okay.”
“And I’m also going to be right here. The whole time. For all of it. Every single day. You don’t get to do this alone. Not one more day. Do you understand me?”
He didn’t answer. He just reached over and put his hand on my knee, the way he used to when we were young and drove everywhere with the windows down.
I put my hand on top of his.
His left hand. The one with the pale stripe.
We told Sophie that Saturday.
She drove home from school. We sat at the kitchen table, all three of us. Mark had tried to write out what he wanted to say on an index card, like he was giving a speech at a job site meeting. His hands were shaking so much he couldn’t read it.
