Chapter 18: The Carriage House

The boxes were still on the lawn.

Somebody had stacked them neatly under a tarp, and the grass beneath had gone yellow.

I stood at the carriage house door with the key the lawyer had handed me that afternoon.

Hannah stood a step behind me with her bag over her shoulder and said nothing.

The postscript was folded in my breast pocket, and I could feel it there.

*Check who sits on its board.*

I had asked the lawyer for the bank's directors before I left his office. He said the list would take until Wednesday.

"Wednesday," Hannah said, reading my face. "Tonight you sleep."

"Mine again," I said.

"Open it."

The lock turned on the first try.

Inside, the room smelled of dust and cold coffee.

My own sweater was still over the chair where I had left it.

She walked in slowly and looked at everything.

The narrow bed, the shelf of my grandfather's paperbacks, the kettle with the chipped handle.

"You lived like this for seven years."

"I thought it was temporary."

"Tobias."

"I know."

She set her bag down and turned the lock behind us.

"Show me the bed," she said.

"It's a single."

"That's the point."

I laughed, and then she had me by the lapels and her mouth was on mine.

She pushed me back until my shoulders hit the kitchen counter.

I dropped the cane, and it clattered across the floor.

She pulled my shirt open and kissed my chest.

I got her blouse undone and her bra unhooked, and I took her nipple in my mouth.

She moaned and arched against me.

I worked my hand down the front of her jeans and found her clit, slick already under my fingers.

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