Chapter 4
“SO,” DORA SAID. She was pounding a cloth bag containing dry bread onto the table to make crumbs she needed for the duck stuffing. A line of plucked and marinated ducks lay before her on the table. “What did it say, this big secret book of your father’s?”
Nellie sighed and sat down at the table, clutching her tea and facing her plate with bread and cheese.
During the long night, she had spent much time looking at the ceiling in the dark, wondering what she would answer to these inevitable questions.
“The book told me I didn’t want to remember the bad things about him.”
“What I said. He’s a dick.”
“He was not a bad man in his heart.”
“Pfaugh.” Dora hit the bag on the table a few times. Dust wafted through the pores in the fabric. “No one is perfect. Not even our parents.”
