The Note on Jolene’s Monitor Said Two Words

given me.

She took it.

Then she said, “Fair.”

“Who do you work for?”

“You.”

“Try again.”

She leaned against the door and rubbed her cheek.

“Your father.”

That got through.

My father had died when I was twenty-two. Heart attack in the teachers’ lounge at Westbrook High, with a stack of ungraded essays in his bag and half a turkey sandwich on his desk.

“No,” I continue reading …