Chapter 24: The Gate

Dean had Poppy on his hip and had taken three steps toward the door.

I did not run at him.

"Dean," I said.

He kept walking.

Clark moved first, but not toward Dean.

He put himself in the doorway, one hand on each side of the frame, and did not say a word.

Behind Dean, the crew came back in from the porch with their wives, men with sawdust on their sleeves, and they stood in the hall.

The old foreman was last.

He closed the front door and leaned on it.

Dean stopped.

He turned his head and saw the room.

The whole crew stood in it, with their wives, and none of them said a word.

"I'm her father," he said. His voice cracked. "I have rights."

"You have Saturdays at the library," I said. "With the monitor."

"Daddy."

Poppy had put her small hand flat on his collar.

"What, sweetheart?"

"You didn't ask."

"What?"

"You didn't say please," Poppy said. "Mommy says you ask if you want to carry someone. You didn't ask me."

For a moment Dean's face did something I did not expect.

It folded.

He closed his eyes, and I watched all of it go out of him.

He bent his knees and set her down on the rug, and she stepped to my side and took my hand.

"I'm sorry," he said, to her.

"Okay."

"Saturday?" he asked me, and his voice was small. "Is it still Saturday?"

"It's still Saturday," I said. "If you show up."

He nodded.

He had a gold card in his fist and nothing else.

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