“She was sleeping in her coat,” he said. “In Dad’s chair.”
“Yes.”
“Thirty below.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she call one of us?”
“Because she didn’t want Pam to get in trouble.”
Rob put his hand over his face.
“Dad told us,” he said through his fingers. “The last thing he told us. Don’t let her get cold out there.”
“I know, Rob.”
We stood in the shed a long time. Then Dean said quietly, “Is Pam coming tomorrow?”
“Mom says she is.”
“What are we going to say to her?”
I’d been thinking about that for eleven weeks. I still didn’t have an answer.
Pam came in last.
Her car pulled into the yard at eleven-thirty, half an hour after everyone else. I watched through the kitchen window as she got out. She was alone. Mark had stayed home, and the kids were with his parents.
She looked thinner than at Christmas. Her coat hung loose on her shoulders, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Her hair, which she’d always kept so nice, was pulled back in a plain ponytail.
She came in through the kitchen door, stamping snow off her boots on the rug.
“Happy Easter,” she said quietly, to nobody in particular.
“Happy Easter, honey,” Mom said from her chair.
Rob and Dean looked up from their coffee. Nobody else said anything.
She wasn’t empty-handed. She was carrying a large brown accordion file, the kind with an elastic band around it, thick and bulging. And on top of it, a white envelope.
