Chapter 6: The Teller

I stepped onto the porch beside my mother.

"You can keep the letter, Gavin," I said. "You can keep the flowers, too."

He turned the smile on me.

"Deanna. I didn't know you were here."

"You know everything about where I am. You changed my locks yesterday."

The women on the sidewalk had stopped talking.

The oldest of them, a retired pharmacist in a plaid coat, came up the walk with her purse over her arm.

"Gavin Hallstrom," she said. "I sat at your wedding."

"Ma'am, it's good to see you."

"You're cutting off a heart patient's medicine over a rumor on the internet."

"It's not a rumor. There's an investigation."

"Is there a police report?" she asked.

He opened his mouth.

"There's an internal review," he said.

"That's not a police report."

A second woman had her phone up now.

A third took her purse off her shoulder and held it by the strap.

"We've fed this family since Ray passed," said the pharmacist. "Peg's pills will be paid for by this congregation. Put that in your letter."

Gavin looked at the women.

I watched him add them up, and I watched him decide not to fight them.

He set the flowers on the porch rail.

"I'm only trying to do what's right for the company," he said.

"Then do it somewhere else," my mother said, and shut the door.

Through the window I saw him walk back to his car without hurrying.

He didn't look angry.

He looked annoyed, and he didn't look worried at all.

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