Chapter 9: Torin's POV

Torin's POV

My father's study smelled of pipe smoke and old paper, and it had not changed since I was six.

I stood in front of his desk at two in the morning with a drawer pulled out in my hand.

I had not been able to sleep in days, so I had gone looking for something to do with my hands, and I had opened my own desk.

Two cream cards lay at the bottom, under the tax forms.

I had kept every one.

Still choosing you. The same four words, in her small neat handwriting, two years running.

The first year I had laughed.

I had told her bonds were not chosen, and she had only smiled and gone back to the stove.

I had thought she was being sweet.

I carried the drawer down the hall and put the two cards on my father's blotter, where he could see them.

"Where did you get the wording for the doctor?" I said.

My father did not look up from his book.

"Torin, it's two in the morning."

"Where did you get it?"

"I took advice. A man in my position takes advice." He turned a page. "You are not well. Go to bed."

"The doctor says you paid him."

"The doctor is a frightened man who will say anything to get his name out of the paper."

"He said it in front of me. He showed me the check."

My father closed the book, finally, and took off his reading glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

He looked at the cards.

His hand was shaking.

I had not seen that before in my whole life.

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