Chapter 11: One Dollar

"While she is still a Winthrop," I read out loud.

"That's Mother being warm," Hutch said.

"What's she like when she's cold?"

"You've seen it. You were in the front hall."

I turned the card over.

Nothing on the back.

"She wants us both at that table so the whole family can watch," I said.

"Probably."

"Are you going?"

He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the painting over it.

"I haven't been to Thanksgiving in eight years."

"That's not an answer."

"I'll go if you go. I'm not sending you into that house alone."

"I'm not sure I'm going."

"Then I'm not sure either."

He put the card face down on the library books and we left it there for a month.

The next Tuesday was league night.

The mailmen were ahead of the purple satin team by eleven pins, and nobody was talking about anything else.

Fran had joined the mailmen full time.

They'd ordered her a Return to Sender shirt in a women's small.

She wore it.

Hutch called me to the bar at the break.

He had a sheet of paper on the counter and a pen.

"Read it," he said.

It was a bill of sale.

One oil painting, "Girl on a Blue Sheet." From Hutch Winthrop to Neve Cahill Winthrop.

Price: one dollar.

I looked up at him.

"What is this?"

"As long as she's mine, he'll keep coming at me to get to you. The note, the offers, Cate with a check."

"So you're giving her away?"

"I'm giving her back. Nobody can sell her but you. Nobody can buy her from anybody but you."

"Hutch, she's worth more than this building."

"She was never mine to begin with. I was just keeping her safe."

My throat closed.

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