Margaret watched me pick up my water glass, her eyes tracing the pattern on my sleeve before settling on my face.
“Father says you still live in the county road area,” she said, resting her elbows on the dark wood.
“I have lived there for thirty years,” I said, keeping my voice soft and level.
“It must be very quiet out there,” she said, though she did not wait for me to agree. “I suppose you have a lot of time on your hands now that you are retired from the school district.”
“I keep busy with the church choir and the garden,” I said.
Daniel spent most of the meal pushing a small potato around his plate with his fork. Whenever I tried to ask him about his work at the lumber yard, he gave me a one-word answer and looked back down at the floor.
“Daniel has been taking over more of the commercial accounts lately,” Garrett said, trying to fill the quiet gap between us with his smooth cadence. He reached up and rubbed his left wrist, a nervous habit I had noticed more frequently over the last week.
