Hal wakes before the blizzard (pp. 853–854)
Mario cedes me full control over the phone’s ringer and answering machine, since he has trouble holding the receiver and the only messages he ever gets are In-House ones from the Moms.
Context
A small sighting with a precise charge: the only phone messages Mario ever receives are "In-House ones from the Moms." The exempt son — the one Avril worships rather than skull-lashes — has exactly one correspondent, his mother, on a private in-house channel, while Hal fields Orin's long-distance calls and runs the outgoing messages. The family's communication topology in one line: Avril's love routed to Mario through a dedicated internal line, the disabled son kept close and reachable, the mother's voice the whole of his inbox.