If there’s anything to find, we find it properly.
That means you don’t move first.”
“He was at the hospital last week,” I said.
“He was alone with Frank.”
“I heard you.” His voice was careful.
“One step at a time.
Can you stay where you are tonight?”
I looked at Miriam.
She was still in the doorway, watching me with Frank’s dark eyes.
“Yes,” I said.
“I can stay here.”
I put the phone down.
Miriam came and sat beside me on the sofa — not across from me, beside me — and for a while neither of us spoke.
The photographs on the wall looked back at us.
Frank young and smiling.
Frank holding a small girl up toward the camera.
Frank looking at the little girl the way people look at things they are afraid of losing.
“Did he know?” I finally asked.
“When he sent me here tonight — did he know he wasn’t going to make it through?”
