Chapter 4: The Spare Room

Dorothea's hand closed on Milo's shoulder before the sailboat touched the porch.

"Inside," she said. "Now. Wash your face."

"But he has my..."

"Inside."

She turned him around and walked him through the door.

The last thing I saw was Milo looking back over his shoulder, past me, at the man holding my box.

The door shut.

Emmett stood very still on the bottom step.

His face had gone white under the freckles.

"Emmett?"

"Lots of people have red hair," he said.

He said it to the box.

Then he carried it to my car, set it on the back seat, and walked to his truck without looking at the house again.

I followed him up Route 2 with my hands cold on the wheel.

He didn't stop, he didn't speed, and he used his turn signal at every exit.

The shop sat on a spit of land with the bay on three sides.

It was a long gray building with the doors rolled up on a half-planked hull, and a narrow staircase on the outside that led to the rooms above.

I carried my box up one flight at a time.

My photographs went on the floor of the spare room, face up, still in their pile.

I knelt and began to unpack the rest.

The recipe cards were tied in a bundle with packing tape, and I was cutting it with a box cutter when the blade slipped.

It went across the heel of my palm, quick and clean.

"Ow," I said, with surprise more than pain.

Blood ran into my wrist.

Emmett was in the doorway before I'd finished the word.

"Sit," he said.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

He came back with a first-aid tin and a clean rag and knelt on the floorboards in front of me.

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