7.

I CALLED BARBARA AND EXPLAINED WHAT WAS GOING ON. ONCE again, I asked for help.

This time, she said she couldn’t do anything for me.

I reminded her what she had said that day on my patio about doing the right thing, and she agreed everybody should, but she had two kids and one of them had special needs. She had to put them first. I brought up what she had done already, going to Costa Rica, directing me to France, and she said yes, she had done all that, but that had been behind the scenes. Her position was different than mine. Her life was different. She couldn’t afford to lose her job, she couldn’t just leave the Cape, and she couldn’t stay and be a pariah.

“My father,” she said, and didn’t finish the rest of the sentence. Then she added the words “My son,” and I was supposed to understand.