They echoed like voices coming down a concrete hallway at a baseball stadium, at a hospital, or the back entrance of a hotel, where bundled trash is tossed into a Dumpster. You open the door, hear freeway noises, and toss. They were discussing him. He could make out his name, but they might as well have been saying "toast" or "bobby pin" or "Doritos." There was not much passion, or nerve, or anything like a tug-of-war. He could never remember them fighting. For years, there had just been a lot of sighing over a toilet seat not put down, or a hand closing like a stone at the kitchen sink when one of them discovered a poorly washed fork. And the laundry? Why did he always hang his shirts so sloppily on the line? And their Lexus? Didn't she know not to park next to a Ford Taurus sure to ding their door? Hector heard a coffee cup setting back into the saucer. That's how his parents were, nice and tidy, with no rings on their maple furniture. The flowers in the vase were artificial, and the "Great Writers" leather-bound books on the shelf had never been opened.
