A Question of Manhood. Robin Reardon

      She made coffee and poured some for me. And then we sat there, the three of us, like lumps, carefully avoiding—or so it seemed to me—looking toward the fourth chair at the table. No one spoke, unless they wanted to ask for the jam or something. I don’t know what my folks were thinking, but it was suddenly hitting me pretty hard that this was it now. This was everybody. There would never again be four of us.

      I had sort of got used to it being just me and Mom and Dad while Chris was away, but it was always a temporary thing, you know? There was always that light at the end of the tunnel. But Chris was the light, and now he was gone.