“What’s on tonight?”
“I really wish, though, that you would try to be a little firmer with Sean.”
“He’s getting so big,” she said, as though that were an answer.
“He can’t go through life as foul-mouthed as he is now.”
Sylvia smiled and handed David a glass clean on the inside and greasy out.
“Ingrid’s glass,” said David, handing it back.
“It always needs to be washed twice.”
“I really wish, I really do, that you would try to be more firm with Sean.”
“I will.” She handed him Ingrid’s mostly clean glass. “What’s on TV tonight?”
* * *
She was the gentlest human being he had ever known. David knew Sylvia could no more be firm with Sean or Ingrid or anyone than she could dismantle a carburetor or butcher a cow.
After college, he had spent a year in the government language school at
