"I've got to call my mom," Mary suddenly said.
"What in God's name for?" Joe asked.
"I just have to. Something has happened."
"What? What happened?" Joe asked. The tone of Mary's voice made him suddenly afraid.
Seeing his face, Mary said, "Don't worry. Nothing bad. Something good. I just want to tell her about it."
Joe was still not assured, but he shrugged his shoulders and nodded briefly. "If you must, you must," he said.
It wasn't easy getting through. Her mother's phone had been disconnected a number of times, and had been changed. Finally, though Mary got the number from the local police, who had been called out to the house several times for disturbance of the peace and domestic violence.
Mary had thought she would be terrified speaking to her mother after all the years, all the trouble. But she was surprisingly calm. "Hello, Mom," she said matter of factly, when the rasping, smoke-hardened voice came on the line.
It was her mother who was stunned, off balance. "Mary?" She asked incredulously?
"A lot has happened, Mom," Mary said. "I won't bore you with the details. Dad came to see me a few days ago."
"Impossible."
"He told me he had to leave. He told me to keep my family together."
"Family? What family?"
"A long story. I just wanted to know more about Dad. -- And you."
"Your father is dead. Drank himself to death." Mary's mother hung up the phone.
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