...of an aftermath

Good nights were exchanged. Aunt Bertha and David's father, the former fervid, the latter stony, crossed snubbing glances. Invited by David's mother to pay them many visits, Mr Sternowitz accepted without too much zest, and after a bare smile from David's father, crowded out of the door in Aunt Bertha's lee. Silence followed. His father tilted his chair back against the wall with a violent thump and stared morosely at the ceiling. His mother cleared the dishes carefully, impinging on a look of anxiety, a look of abstraction. David wished they would talk. Silence only made his father more ominous. But the silence continued, and David feeling himself caught as if in talons of stress dared not move - at least not until his father spoke and eased the strain - and for escape meanwhile, could only stare at the new picture his mother had bought.

[Call It Sleep, Roth, H.]