Hal and Mario on the Moms and sadness (p. 42)
‘How come she never got sad?’ ‘She did get sad, Booboo. She just got sad in her way instead of yours and mine. She got sad, I’m pretty sure.’ […] ‘Don’t cry, Booboo. Remember the flag only halfway up the pole? 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?’ ‘Hal?’ ‘She’s plenty sad, I bet.’
Context
Mario's real question all along: why the Moms never cried when Himself died. Hal's flag-at-half-mast parable is his most generous reading of Avril's non-mourning — sadness disguised by elevation rather than absent — and the family's whole affect-economy in one exchange: the sad brother who can't show it explaining the mother who won't.