Five Years Gone, She Walked Back In, So I Walked Out novel · Chapter 4 of 24
Chapter 4: The Fall
"Sawyer mentioned it last night," Lorna said again, and smiled at the carpet.
"Did he."
"Stevie, you look so pale."
Footsteps sounded in the hall.
Sawyer appeared in our bedroom doorway in his work jacket with sawdust on the shoulders. He had come straight from the yard.
His mother had texted him. I could see her phone in her hand.
"What's going on?" he said.
He looked at the photographs on the floor, at the empty frame in his mother's hand, and then at the small square picture Lorna held.
His face changed.
For one second his face went blank and guilty.
"Sawyer," I said. "How long has that been behind our wedding picture?"
"Stevie."
"How long?"
"Not here," he said. "Not in front of Poppy."
"Did you tell her my daughter's middle name?"
"What?"
"Jane. She just said it. Did you tell her?"
He glanced at Lorna.
It was a very short glance. He did not say yes.
He did not say no either.
"I may have," he said at last. "I don't remember. It's not a state secret, Stevie."
Something went quiet in my chest.
"It is to me," I said.
I picked up Poppy's backpack from the bed.
I took Poppy's hand and went to the door, and I did not look at the floor.
That was my mistake.
Photographs lay spread across the rug in a thick, glossy sheet, and when I took a step back to get around his mother, my heel came down on the edge of a printed picture.
It slid.
My foot went out from under me, and I threw one hand out for the doorframe and missed.
I felt Sawyer's arm come around my waist.
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