No. Your dad said I ought to write him a long letter and face up to all
the things I've goofed on. Quitting NYU, the cellar trouble, all that.
Then tell him I'm going to get a job and go to night school. Your dad
figures probably he'd help me. He said he'd write him, too. No reason he
should. I'm nothing in his life. It's pretty nice of him."

I try to digest all this, and it sure is puzzling. The time I ran down
that crumb of a doorman on my bike, accidental on purpose, I didn't get
any long understanding talks. I just got kept in for a month.

Tom slaps me in the middle of the back and stands up. "Hilda's gone back
to work at the coffee shop. I guess I'll go down and see her before the
lunch rush, and then go home and write my letter."

"Say 'Hi' for me."

"O.K. So long."

* * * * *

The weather cools off some, and Pop starts to talk about vacation. He's
taking two weeks, last of August and first of September, so I start
shopping around for various bits of fishing tackle and picnic gear we
might need. We're going to this lake up in Connecticut, where we get a
sort of motel cottage. It has a little hot plate for making coffee in the
morning, but most of the rest of the time we eat out, which is neat.

We're sitting around the living room one evening, sorting stuff out, when
the doorbell rings. I go answer it, and Tom walks in. He nods at me like
he hardly sees me and comes into the living room. He shakes hands like a
wooden Indian. His face looks shut up again, the way it did that day I
left him in the filling station.

He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a letter. I can see a post-office
stamp in red ink with a pointing hand by the address. He throws it down on
Dad's table.

"I got my answer all right."

Pop looks at the letter and I see his foot start to twitch the way it does
when he's about to blow. But he looks at Tom, and instead of blowing he
just says, "Your father left town? No forwarding address?"

"I guess so. He just left. Him and that woman he married." Tom's voice
trails off and he walks over to the window. We all sit quiet a minute.

Finally Pop says gently, "Well, don't waste too much breath on her. She's
nothing to do with you."

Tom turns around angrily. "She's no good. She loafs around and drinks all
the time. She talked him into going."

"And he went." There's another short silence, and Pop goes on. "Where was
this you lived?"

"House. It was a pr