I don’t know how to reply. I stare down into my mug.
Her voice is tight. “Mom keeps asking me…” Her words stumble. She starts again… “She asks, and I don't know what to say to her.”
“I think you can only say that, whatever's happened, your father did what he did to protect her. And you. And he sent her the ring. He planned a future with her. He'll come back when he can.”
“If he can.”
*****
Klempner
My resources: The clothes I’m wearing. A notebook and the stub of a pencil: A book on herbal toxins. A small supply of sweet water. An infinite supply, for any practical purpose, of foul water, slime and garbage. And of course, one small potato.
I’d like to give in to despair. There’s something alluring about despair, something seductive. Perhaps I should simply not play Juliana’s game;
