Chapter 19: The Family Lounge

On the twenty-third, at ten in the morning, I heard a key scrape in the front door lock.

Nathan had changed the locks the day before, with a hardware-store cylinder and a borrowed drill.

The key stopped halfway, and turned again, and stopped.

I came down the hall in my socks and stood behind the door with the chain on.

"Jeanie," Simone's voice said through the wood. "It's cold."

I opened the door three inches.

She stood on the porch in the camel coat with her hair pinned up and a paper bag from a bakery in her hand.

She looked pale, and she was breathing through her mouth.

"Your lock is broken," she said.

"No. It's new."

"I brought croissants."

"I'm not hungry."

"You will be. It's been a busy week."

I said nothing.

She lifted her chin and smiled at me, a real smile, and I understood that she had come to watch me find out she had won.

"The college account," she said. "You found it, didn't you? Dad always was sentimental."

"You signed his name."

"I signed it better than he does."

"That's forgery, Simone."

"Is it? My father gave me his house, his will, and his name in front of forty guests. I'd call a college fund a rounding error."

She reached up to push the door, and the chain held.

Her face tightened.

"Open it."

"No."

She pressed her palm into her side. "My doctor wants me in at six tomorrow morning."

"I know."

Her eyes narrowed.

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