Do you need anything?" she asks. A mom A dad. Someone. Anyone. Can you arrange for that? "Nah, I'm good.

Get away from my house and all its rooms that echo, all the rooms I don't enter anymore.

No, I am not all right, I want to say. Have you been to my house? Have you seen how empty it is?

My mom was there to answer the unanswerable, to make sense of the fault in our life - and we got through that somehow; we came out on the other side. Now I'm 0 for 2 and I don't get any more pitches to swing at.