Tess took a frozen pork chop from my father’s freezer and bound it to my hand with one of his Ace bandages. It smelled of Right Guard. She didn’t say anything about the prison, or the way I’d behaved, or my mother, but it was clear she was exhausted by all of us.
We slept in the spare bedroom, squeezed together in that tiny bed where once my father had put me to sleep. We separated his things—to trash, to Goodwill, to keep. Tess chose a thick grey cashmere cardigan, which had once been my grandfather’s. I kept his lined Levi’s jacket. His duffel bag. We kept his Wagoneer. Otherwise, there wasn’t much to hold onto really. Photographs. Papers. Books. The record collection. Some clothes. Some wine. The ammo box.
The booze we gave to Hank, who came to see us on our first night carrying a pizza from Lester’s. We gave him an umbrella, too. A good black one with a polished-oak handle.
Hank said my father had begun discreetly using it as a cane.