Chapter 13

I woke up an hour later, and Mirko was next to me.

The boy practically ran out of the room (he ran very fast, in fact) and immediately returned to his father. He brought me something to eat, and I accepted it with a bit of embarrassment. The roast was very good; anyway, they just had to put it in the oven. Ivan sat at the coffee table watching me eat, and he didn’t let me return the plate until it was empty. Then he handed me two aspirin and a glass of water.

Letting myself “be taken care of” by him was easy. Maybe it had been so long since anyone had taken care of me or visited me that I was a little desperate to interact with interesting people. My in-laws always traveled on Christmas and on my birthday (and on the anniversary of the accident, when they picked me up to travel to Minneapolis to visit Paul’s grave); and my parents did it every two months and stayed for a couple of days. But I always felt pressured, as if they were waiting for me to finally leave Wyoming