Unbeknownst

Instead

11 Instead My brother called from Madison while I was out and left a message of thirty bitter words, and he intends to tell our father out in Tucson not to speak with me again by phone. Apparently it has not occurred to him that in scenes he never glimpsed there may have been some need for patience and for arbitration which his sensitivities have altogether failed to guess. The limits of his imagination are too lengthy to list! A family of three or four is too complex! We think we see the possibilities and forget we have imagined them. Each small gesture to accommodate is another chance to flub it up and take a walk instead. Then I spied the one streetlight near our home running at quarter power, barely glowing, almost out. As I pointed and related this to my companion, it came on strong. How telling, I thought, and so like an object to offer a guiltless and forthright response. ...