When she opened her eyes, she said, "Is he well?"
"He fixes TVs," Carter said. "And VCRs. He's got a sign. He's really good. Everybody says." It came out in a rush, and he didn't know why it seemed so important to tell her that first. "He's left-handed. He sticks his tongue out when he works. He's allergic to cats. He has a cigar box in his workbench with a patch in it that says Copper Kings. And the bus ticket. And his draft card. And a negative." He swallowed. "Of you. Laughing. At the counter at the studio."
Mrs. Abbott made a sound. She put her hand flat over her mouth and held it there.
"He said you didn't do anything," Carter said. "He said you watched. He said you let his dad send the letters back and you never drove to Canada. Is that true?"
He had promised his mother he wouldn't throw things. He didn't think this was throwing. He thought somebody ought to ask.
Mrs. Abbott took her hand down.
"Yes," she said.
Just that. She didn't make it into anything else.
"I told myself Walt would come around," she said after a moment. "I told myself I'd go in the spring. Then I told myself I'd go when the war was over, and the war wasn't over, and then Carter's letters stopped coming, because why would he keep writing to nobody, and then I didn't know where he was anymore. And I let that be a reason." She looked at him straight. "He's right to be angry. Don't you ever let anybody tell him he's not."
Carter nodded slowly.
"There's one thing he doesn't know," she said. "You'd better come up."
* * *
His father was at the bench when he got home. He had the Oro Valley lady's Betamax in pieces, the wedding tape unspooled across the bench in long brown loops, and he was winding it back by hand onto the reel, an inch at a time, with a pencil through the hub. He didn't look up when Carter set the bike against the post.
"You went over there," he said.
"Yes."