After a Year of Silence novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Rain on the Sidewalk

I took the twelve letters to The Low Tide that night and put them on the bar in front of my brother.

Quinn looked at the rubber band, and then at my bare left hand.

"Tell me," he said.

I told him all of it.

He listened without interrupting, wiping the same spot on the counter.

When I got to the drawer and the phone, he stopped wiping.

"Gwen," he said. "Gwen brought lasagna to Dad's funeral."

"I know."

"She cut it into squares. She wrote the reheating instructions on foil."

"I know, Quinn."

He threw the towel into the sink.

It was the first time I had ever seen my brother truly angry.

"And him?" he said.

"What about him?"

"He's been standing outside my window for an hour."

I turned around.

Through the front glass, across the wet street, Quentin stood under a streetlight with no umbrella.

His suit jacket was dark with rain.

He was not looking at the bar.

He was looking at the pavement, with his hands in his pockets, waiting.

"I told him he could not come in," Quinn said.

"You did what?"

"He asked. I said no. He said he understood and went and stood there."

"Quinn."

"He can stand in the rain," my brother said. "It's good for him."

I should have been angry at my brother.

I was not.

I opened the first envelope instead.

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