He’s back with two trays of food. He hears an echo of what Dad used to say when he came home with a bucket of fish to fry: Grub, ho! His favorite sentiment next to Sleepers, arise! But the mood has changed. Mom’s eyes, never concealed, have always been her best quality, gorgeously cowlike, lashes like kelp fronds. She’s losing hair a bit at the seam and trying to obscure it; it makes Jay feel protective. He’d do anything for her. Except move back. Just name it. “He’s asking for you, Jay,” she says. “You’re all he talks about.”
