My Children Came Back to the Hospital Pretending to Care but My Bed Was Already Empty

is one of the qualities I have valued in him across thirty years. Then he said, without looking up from the pad: “The one dollar is intentional.”

“Yes.”

“It prevents a contest. It’s explicit acknowledgment, which closes the argument that you forgot them or didn’t understand what you were doing.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s why it’s one dollar and not nothing.continue reading …