Chapter 11: Fourteen Months

Dalton came to my father's door at five o'clock with his mother's casserole in his hands.

He saw my face through the screen and stopped.

I had put the yellow page in the middle of the kitchen table.

My father stood at the sink with his back to us and the water running.

Trudy slept in her bassinet by the radiator, and I had pulled it close to my chair.

"Sit down," I said.

Dalton set the casserole on the counter.

He pulled out the chair across from me and looked at the page, and he did not touch it.

"You found it."

"I took your key."

"I know. I saw it was gone when I got to the diner."

He swallowed.

"I've been driving around for two hours trying to think how to start."

"Start with the baby."

"Arlen is Jack's son."

My father turned the water off.

It was so quiet that I heard it drip.

I had known for three hours, and it still went through me.

"Say all of it," I said. "Term one."

Dalton put both hands flat on the table.

"Jack was on the third floor at the Lakeview job. The scaffold gave. I got there while they were still cutting him loose."

"I know."

"You don't know the part after. He was awake in the ICU on the second night."

"He told me about Colette. He told me she was pregnant."

"He wrote the letter himself, left-handed, because his right hand was gone."

"And he asked you to tell me."

"He asked me to tell you. He said, 'She's going to blame herself. Be gentle.'"

I laughed, and it came out wrong.

"I called you twice from that hospital," Dalton said, very low.

"The first morning and the second night. I said, 'Noe, he's asking for you.'"

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