Chapter 16: Past Sunday

Cillian was at the gate at six, with his hands in his pockets and no coffee.

I pulled up beside him and got out of Darrell's car.

"Back on time," I said.

"I noticed."

We walked up the track together without talking.

The pickers had gone home, and the rows were gold in the low light.

At the bend by the cottage I stopped.

"They're at the inn in town," I said. "Mom, Dad, the boys."

"Your mom asked if she could stay here."

"I told her no."

"I know. She told me, and she thanked me for the tea."

"I'm not going back to that house, Cillian. Not Saturday, not after."

He looked at the vines instead of me.

"You say that now," he said. "After what your father said at the cove, anyone would."

He rubbed the back of his neck.

"But I've watched you go back, Willa. That summer, you left for your family's Labor Day barbecue."

"I remember."

"I thought, that's the last I'll see of her."

"It was."

"And you went back to them for six years."

"I didn't know what they were," I said. "Now I do."

"People go back to what they know."

He had said it to my face, and I had never been so grateful to anyone.

"Then let me say it plainly," I said. "I'm going to the cove on Saturday, because I have a sentence of my own."

"Okay."

"After that I'm coming back up this hill. If you'll have me, I'm staying."

"And if I won't?"

"Then I'm renting the room over the barn from you, and I'll pay in cash."

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