A Life Lived in Hundreds

by Botched Lobotomy


1389

‘Tea Kettle helped us write it.’
‘Oh.’
‘She’s struggling with...well, just like you are.’
Smith kept her voice carefully neutral. ‘That so.’
‘Smith.’ Pa’s voice was soft. He had more grey in him than she remembered.
‘What.’
‘Come to dinner, Sunday night.’
‘No thank you.’
They stared at each other. He looked away. ‘Please.’
‘It would mean ever so much,’ her mother put in.
‘You can bring your...friend,’ Pa said. ‘If you must.’
She imagined it: sitting at the table again, the smell of pasty and apple and coal from the fire. Twilight sitting next to her.
Home. Properly home.