"I got the ticket," my father said, after a while. He had it in his hand, the Greyhound ticket, the bookmark. "Thirty-one dollars. I owe Florkowski."
"I know," my mother said.
"Mitch is gonna be at the station at six in the morning."
"I know."
"It's real work, Ro. Through spring. That money's real." He turned the ticket over. "Whatever happens Saturday, it's months before any of that turns into a paycheck. Months. Maybe a year. And I might not—I might not pass the thing. Mrs. Spratley says I'm ready but Mrs. Spratley ain't the one sitting in the chair."
My mother didn't say anything for a while. She was looking at the street, at the Iannuzzis' painted screen across the way, which showed a mill with a waterwheel, and at the light behind it.
"There's a 7:15 in the morning," she said finally. "To Norfolk. I know because my sister took it at Easter."
My father looked at her.
"You call Mitch from the Royal Farms," my mother said. "You tell him maybe the 7:15. You tell him maybe next week. You tell him maybe never, I don't know, Ted, I don't know, I'm not telling you not to go. I'm not telling you anything tonight. We'll be broke either way, honey, we were going to be broke anyway." She wiped her nose on the back of her wrist, which I had never seen her do in my life. "But you're not getting on any bus before Thursday. Because Thursday is your son's birthday. And on your son's birthday you are going to sit on the edge of his bed and read him something out of a book. I don't care if it's one page. I don't care if it's Green Eggs and Ham. I don't care if it takes you an hour to get through it. And then on Thursday night you're going up to the library, and you're going to tell Mrs. Euphemia Spratley that you're sorry you missed, and that your wife would like to meet her. And then Saturday morning I'm going to put on my good coat and ride the Number 4 out to Dundalk with you and sit in the bus shelter on the corner, the one you sat in. And I'm going to wait. However long it takes. And if you come out and you didn't pass, then you didn't pass, and we'll figure it out. And if you come out because you got up and left again—" Her voice broke and she let it. "Then you come sit with me in the bus shelter, and we'll go back in together and ask them when's the next one."