grief said the only way it can be said
Booboo, there are two ways to lower a flag to half-mast. Are you listening? Because no shit I really have to sleep here in a second. So listen—one way to lower the flag to half-mast is just to lower the flag. There's another way though. You can also just raise the pole. You can raise the pole to like twice its original height. You get me? You understand what I mean, Mario?
Context
The one thing Hal manages to transmit all night he transmits sideways, through a parable, because the direct statement (their mother's grief is real, only hidden by how high she has raised herself) is exactly the thing he cannot say straight. Indirection turns out to be the working channel: the flag lowered by raising the pole reaches Mario in a way "she's plenty sad" alone never could. Landed here on the connection-that-works angle; the reading of Avril's grief is family-hamlet's. [sweep · shared-ground family-hamlet]