On Friday, after dropping the girls at school, Roy sat in the living room, listening to “Blue Christmas” over and over. It was the song Lois had always played this time of year in memory of her father, and now he played it in memory of her because on this date, two years before, she had died.
At ten in the morning, there was loud knocking on the door, and he went to answer it. “What do you want now?” he asked as he opened the door. But it wasn’t Kathleen. It was Pat.
“Where the hell have you been?” Pat asked, stepping over the threshold and barging into the house. “I’ve been calling you for three days, and you haven’t answered the phone.”
“I’m sitting here with Elvis.”
“Have you been doing this for three days?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Why didn’t you answer my calls? We went through thi
