Chapter 5: Pink Peonies

I turned around on the wet sidewalk and looked at Dean.

"What exactly would you lose?" I asked.

He opened his mouth, and his eyes went to my father.

My father stood on the porch with one hand on the rail.

"Dean," my father said mildly. "Come inside and get dry."

Dean looked at him, then back at me.

I watched him decide.

He had always taken the easiest road, and tonight the easiest road was up the steps.

He went inside without another word.

My father held the door for him and did not look at me again.

I drove back up the hill to Sierra Madre with my hands shaking on the wheel.

In the morning there were peonies on my aunt's doorstep.

They were pink, two dozen of them, tied with a satin ribbon.

Dean was sitting on the porch step beside them in yesterday's shirt.

My aunt stood in the doorway with her trowel in one hand and a mug in the other.

She had not invited him in.

"Ten minutes," she told me. "I'll be in the garden."

She walked off and left the door open behind her.

Dean stood up.

"Annie, I brought your favorites," he said.

I looked at the peonies.

"What's my favorite color, Dean?"

He laughed, a short nervous sound.

"Come on."

"What's my favorite color?"

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