Chapter 8: The Box in the Closet

Stewart's POV

At two in the morning I was still sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall.

Beth slept on her side with one arm over Junie, who had crawled in between us after the church.

Neither of them stirred.

I had spent six hours telling myself that Geneva was sick.

That was what everyone said, and it was easier than the other thing.

But I kept seeing Junie walk down that aisle with her arms up.

She had never done that for anyone, not even my mother.

She had pointed at Geneva's picture every Sunday since she could point.

And a woman with that face and that scar through her eyebrow had stood in front of two hundred people and asked for her.

I got up without making the bed move.

The house account statements were kept in the hall closet, in a file box with BILLS written on it in Beth's looped capitals.

I had never opened that box in my life.

Beth had taken over the bills the first winter, when I couldn't hold a pen without shaking.

I told myself she'd done me a kindness.

The statements were in order, by year.

I pulled the ones for the first twelve months after the service.

No cashier's checks.

Every month, the same small withdrawal, and the same note on the line beside it in her handwriting: Church fund.