Getting ready to see Mr Big D

I joined my mother in the kitchen and helped her carry the dishes to the dining table. The three of us sat down together the way we always did when no one was rushing off somewhere. Conversation flowed easily at first—small comments about the food, a story my father told about work, my mother’s usual remarks about the neighbors. I answered when spoken to and even managed a few smiles, yet my mind stayed fixed on the phone I had left upstairs. Every few minutes I felt the pull of it, as though t