How we cite our quotes: (Abbreviated Title.Paragraph)
Quote #10
But each evening when I returned the same thing happened: she slapped the bench, ordered me to sit down, declared that there was a flag on the moon, and declared that it was splendid. I said it was splendid, too, and then we sat in silence. As awkward as it was, and as endless as it felt to me then, the nightly encounter lasted only about ten minutes; inevitably she would drift off to sleep, her head falling abruptly toward her chest, leaving me free to retire to my room. By then, of course, there was no flag standing on the moon. The astronauts, I had read in the paper, had seen it fall before they flew back to Earth. But I did not have the heart to tell her. (TFC 51)
Sometimes the best form of communication is the kind that comes from routine. Or at least that's what Mrs. Croft seems to need from our narrator here. It's comforting, like a bedtime story. Sitting in silence together was still a kind of communication, also.