The Woman in the Viewing Car
An older woman who sat down beside him and asked how he was — and waited for the real answer.
She asked if she could sit beside him. She held her cup in both hands and looked out at the stars and said nothing for a long time. Then she turned and asked, simply: “How are you, Father?” — not in the way people do when they expect the answer they can handle. She waited. He said he was tired. She said tired can mean a lot of things. He told her he used to be able to carry it. She stayed beside him as if staying were its own kind of answer. When he took out the photograph, she asked if she could hold it. She looked at it carefully and said: “She has her daddy’s eyes.” When he said he wasn’t there the way he should have been, she listened without rescuing him. When he finished, she told him he didn’t have to do anything with it tonight. He just had to let it be true. Before she left, she said: “You did the best you could.” Not as reassurance. As recognition.