He comes home quiet.
Then he puts on the first of the four songs, and by the second one he is himself again.
On the second Saturday in April, at the supervised center, he asked Eli, in front of the monitor, whether his mother had “found Grandma’s card yet.”
Eli said, “Which card?” and went back to his drawing.
The monitor wrote it down.
Spencer has never asked me about the card.
I think his lawyers told him not to.
I think, also, that he finally understood what it was, which was not money.
It was his mother, telling him no.
The London blazer went to a consignment shop in Vienna, Virginia, and the money went into Eli’s library fund, which is a jar on the counter and not a trust, and which he is allowed to spend on any book he wants, no justification required.
I kept the funeral check.
