He did not like that she agreed with him. I watched it cross his face. You could almost see him looking for a place to put it.
“Step out of the vehicle, ma’am.”
“Of course.”
“Stand at the rear of your car where I can see you.”
I leaned across the seat. “Is that really necessary? She’s seventy-one. It’s ninety degrees out here.”
He bent down and looked at me through her open door. I could see myself, small and stupid, in both of his lenses.
“Sir, you are going to stay in that seat with your hands where I can see them, or you and I are going to have a very different kind of afternoon.”
“Sit still, Jeffrey,” my mother said.
I knew that voice. Everyone in my family knew that voice. It was low and level and it left no room for anything else, and I had spent a good part of my childhood hating it.
