Wizard nodded as he turned to look at the old man, but be, was staring at the back of the next seat. As soon as Wizard turned back to the window, he started it again.

“Our second girl had a baby last spring. But she won’t come either. Says she wants to have their first Thanksgiving together, just her family alone. So when I said, ‘Well, aren’t we family, too?’ she just said, ‘Oh, Daddy, you know how small our place is. By the time you drove clear down here for Thanksgiving, you’d have to spend the night, and I just don’t have any place to put you.’ Can you beat that?” The old man gave a weary cough. “Eldest boy’s in Germany, you know. Stationed there fourteen months now, and only three letters. Phoned us three weeks ago, though. And when his mother asked him why be didn’t write to us, he says, ‘Oh, Mom, you know how it is.

You know I do love you, even if I don’t find time to write.‘

After he hangs up, she says to me, ‘Yes, I know he loves us, but I wish I could feel him love us.’ It’s for her I mind. Not so much for me. Kids were always a damn nuisance anyway, but it hurts her when they don’t call or write.“

The bus pulled into Wizard’s stop. He kept his seat with his jaw set against the grumbling of his stomach. As soon as the bus lurched forward again, the old man resumed.

“I guess I wasn’t around that much when they were growing up. I guess I didn’t put as much into them as she did; maybe I didn’t give them as much as I should have. So perhaps it’s only fitting that they aren’t around when I’m feeling my years.

But what about Mother? She gave them her years, and now they leave her alone. Can you beat that?“

Just as the old man’s voice trailed out, the Knowing came to Wizard. He always wondered how the talkers knew to come to him, how they sensed that he had something to tell them.