Chapter 20: Say It Out Loud

On Friday night the diner was a maze of boxes.

Dolly had packed her cookbooks and left the pie plates out.

She said she wasn't going to bake with a deadline over her head, and then she baked eleven pies.

Carl sat on the garage floor with the drive in one hand and a laptop in the other, testing cables.

At nine Dolly put down her rolling pin and looked at me.

"Go upstairs," she said.

"I'm not done with the dishes."

"Tamara." She dusted her hands. "I'm sixty-one, and I don't ask. Go."

He was in my room already, standing at the window with his back to the lamp.

I shut the door.

I leaned against it, the way I had the first night, and for a while I just looked at him.

"I want to say something," I said.

He turned.

"Whatever you want."

"That's the problem, Stanley. I'm going to say it, and you're going to let me say all of it."

"Yes."

"And you're not going to answer until I'm done."

"Yes."

"I want you on the bed. On your back, and your hands above your head, where I can see them."

His throat moved.

"I don't want to be careful with you," I said. "I want to take my time, and I want to hear every sound you've kept in for ten years."

He didn't say anything.

His chest was rising fast.

"I want to be the one who decides," I said. "Not because I forgive you. I don't."

He didn't move.

"Tomorrow I walk into that room. Tonight I want one thing where nobody is lying and I am not afraid."

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