Chapter 13: What I Never Said

I told Declan to stay home, and then I took a rideshare to my father's store.

His black car followed it the whole way to Hilliard, two lengths back.

MacAuley Hardware sat at the end of a strip mall between a vape shop and a closed nail salon.

The FORECLOSURE notice was still taped to the glass door.

My father stood under it with his arms crossed, wearing the green apron he had worn since before I could walk.

"I'm not crying," he said. "It's the paint fumes."

"Dad."

"Come here, kid. Mind the shoulder."

He hugged me with one arm, careful, and I held on a second longer than I meant to.

Over his shoulder I watched Declan park crooked across two spaces and get out in a suit that cost more than the store's whole stock of drills.

My father let go of me.

"That's him," he said.

"That's him."

"The one who told the hospital he'd never met you."

"Yes."

"Huh." My father rubbed his jaw. "He's taller than he looked on TV."

Declan came across the lot and stopped a polite distance from us.

"Mr. MacAuley," he said. "I'm Declan Ashworth. I owe you an apology before I owe you anything else."

"You owe my daughter one."

"I owe her several. I'm working through them in order."

My father looked at him for a long moment.

Then he held out the keys to the stockroom.

"Truck's in the alley with forty bags of potting soil," he said. "If you're going to stand around, you can carry."

I opened my mouth to say something.

Declan took off his jacket and folded it over the bumper.

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