Chapter 24: Welcome Home, Mara

I watched his face on the little screen for a long moment.

He stood under the porch light, wet and tired and calm, waiting for me to be moved.

Brogan sat up beside me in the dark.

"You don't have to answer him," he said.

"I want to."

I held down the microphone button.

"You're right, Neil," I said. "I will miss it. I'll miss being managed. I'll miss waiting at the door to be let in."

His mouth began to curve.

"That's a lie," I said. "I won't miss one second of it."

The smile stopped.

"The police are on their way," I said. "Colleen called them from the car. Go and wait for them on the curb, where I used to."

"Mara."

"Hearth, mute the porch speaker."

"Porch speaker muted," the house said.

On the screen, Neil's mouth kept moving, and I couldn't hear a word.

A patrol car turned into the street a minute later with its lights on, and he walked down the path to meet it.

He didn't look back.

The Saturday before Christmas it snowed, and the white house smelled like pancakes.

Colleen stood at the stove in my mother's apron, flipping them with a spatula.

The one-eyed cat sat on the counter, supervising.

Brogan was on a stepladder in the hall, replacing a light fixture with his tongue between his teeth.

"I thought you were deciding what to do with the house," I said, from the kitchen island.

"You gave me the deed to decide that," he said.

"I did. So what did you decide?"

"I decided you should keep it." He glanced down at me. "It's a good house. It needed a different voice."

"So it's mine."

"It was always yours. It just needed to be told."

Colleen turned around with the spatula.

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