One Quiet Question Before the Pageant

“May I come in?”

“Of course.”

Dustin sat at the kitchen table with the plat book open to Section 14, a pencil behind his ear. He did not stand. He looked at her, then back at the page, and I watched her understand that she would be waited on.

Jeanette put the plate down and took off her coat. Then she did something I did not expect. She knelt on the kitchen floor beside his chair, bringing herself down to his height.

“Dustin,” she said. “I’m here to say I’m sorry.”

He said nothing.

“I decided something about you without asking you. I took your part away because I was afraid of how the night would go, and I told myself I was doing it for you. That wasn’t true. I was doing it for me. And I’m sorry.”

Dustin turned a page of the plat book. He turned it back.

“You have known me ten years,” he said.

“I know.”

“At Thanksgiving, you asked Mom if I was going to be a problem at dinner.” He said it without any heat, the way he reads out a road number. “I was in the next room. The wall is thin.”

Jeanette closed her eyes.

“I was fine,” said Dustin. “I just needed the dishwasher off. It makes a noise at one frequency. I didn’t know how to tell you. I went and sat in the truck.”

“I could have turned off the dishwasher,” Jeanette said.

“Yes.”

“Nobody told me.”

“I would have told you,” said my son, “if you had asked.”

“That’s the part I didn’t know,” Jeanette whispered. “I thought you were a thing I’d get wrong. I didn’t know you were a person I could ask.”

“Both,” said Dustin.

“Would you say it?” Jeanette asked. Her voice shook. “Your line. I never heard you say it. Not once. I’d like to hear it. If you’re willing.”

Dustin considered this. He put his pencil in the plat book to hold his place and turned in his chair to face her, hands on his knees. He looked at a spot just past her shoulder, the way he does when he concentrates, and took a breath.

“Let us now go even unto Bethlehem,” he said.

He paused, exactly where he always does. A full breath. I could hear the refrigerator.

“And see this thing which is come to pass.”

It was eleven seconds. I counted. He had been right.

Jeanette put both hands over her face. Her shoulders shook. She made a ragged sound I had never heard from her, kneeling on my kitchen floor in her good wool coat.

Dustin looked at his aunt for a short, careful moment. He did not touch her. Then he looked at the clock on the stove.