My mother came home from Haussner's at nine-fifteen. Mr. Florkowski had offered to drive my father downtown to the Greyhound, and my father had said no thanks, he'd take the Number 10. My mother came in, saw the suitcase standing by the front door, and stopped. She didn't take off her shoes. She didn't say Oh, Mother of God to her feet. She took off her apron and folded it over the banister and stood at the bottom of the stairs with her arms crossed, and my father came up from the basement in his tan coat, and they looked at each other across the front room.
"So," my mother said.
"So," my father said.
I was on the radiator cover in the front window. Boog was on the sill beside me, behind the glass, with the painted cottage between him and the street. The late movie was starting on Channel 45. The man in the commercial was yelling about carpet. Nobody turned it off.
"You don't have to do this," my mother said. "Ted. You do not have to do this."
"You said."
"I know what I said." Her voice wobbled and she caught it. "I said tell me. That's all. I'm still saying it. I'll say it right now. Tell me, and put that suitcase back under the bed."
My father stood there with his hand on the suitcase handle. He opened his mouth. I watched him. I watched him try. It was like watching a man try to lift something off the floor that's bolted down: everything in him went toward it, his shoulders and his jaw and his hands, and nothing moved.
"I'll write," he said finally. And then, so low that I almost didn't hear it, he said, "I'll call. I'll call Sunday nights."