“So you kept the letter.”
“For a few days.”
“How many?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
“A week. Maybe two.”
Dad stared at her.
“You never told me.”
“I intended to.”
“That sentence seems popular in this family,” I said.
Dad accepted the criticism.
Mom did too.
“I put the letter with some of Denise’s paperwork because I didn’t want it lost,” Mom said.
“And then?”
“Your grandmother fell.”
I remembered that too.
Grandma Ruth had broken her wrist that autumn.
Mom spent nearly two weeks driving back and forth to Cincinnati.
“When I came home,” she said, “everything was chaos. You told me you had formally withdrawn from school.”
“I had.”
“So you left the letter where it was.”
I stared at her.
“You knew I could have deferred.”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“By then I thought telling you would only make you feel worse.”
