Chapter 22: The Front Door

Norma left on Saturday, through the front door, carrying one suitcase.

Timothy carried the second.

The court had cut her right of residence to thirty days, and she used four.

She came down the stairs in her church coat with her silver bob combed and her pearls, the cheap strand, around her neck.

She did not look at me.

I stood in the hall with my arms folded, and I did not offer to help.

I had decided that on the drive home.

Some things I would give her.

A hand down the stairs wasn't one of them.

"You'll rot in this house," Norma said to Timothy at the door.

"Probably the roof," Timothy said. "I'll get to it."

She had no answer.

A small blue car waited at the curb, a rental, with a man from the apartment complex at the wheel.

Timothy put the suitcase in the trunk and shut it.

"Where will you live?" I asked, because I was still myself.

"A two-bedroom, off Monroe," she said without turning. "On what the court leaves me."

"I'll send the first month's food."

Her shoulders went rigid.

"I don't want your charity."

"It's not charity. It's groceries."

She got into the car.

Timothy and I stood on the porch until the taillights turned onto Ashby Ford Road, and then there was only the road.

"That's it?" I said.

"That's it."

"I thought I'd feel more."

"You will. Later." He took my hand. "It comes in the night, mostly."

A second car turned into the drive as the first disappeared.

It stopped halfway up, and a woman in a plain gray coat got out of the driver's side.

She had no ring light, no phone in her hand and no makeup.

She stood at the bottom of the porch steps.

"Hi," Kristen said.

Timothy said nothing.

I said nothing.

"I have a check," Kristen said. "Twenty thousand dollars. It's all I had left. I'd like to give it back to Meredith."

"You don't owe me that," I said. "You owe it to him."

Keep reading free with an account. Start A Paper Plate at My Own Table from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.