A few minutes later he was in his office, ready for an unpleasant conversation. It was unpleasant every year and since his father had died, Jared’s mother was much worse on this anniversary. She’d moved back to Bloomington and lived three miles from what had been their old farm. It was a trailer park now.
Her voice was quavery and froggy; he could tell she’d been crying. They got through the pleasantries, “how are things”, “busy”, “you’ve got me on that goshdarn machine don’t you?”.
He kept moving around the office, filing papers, straightening up as he listened to the speakerphone. No way was he going to tell his mother what was going on at the refuge this week.
She started weeping again. It sounded dreadful through the tinny speaker. He wished he could hug her and make her feel better
