The Men Who Walked Out novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Floor

My mother was standing at the study window when I came in without knocking.

She had her back to me, and the lamp was off, and the winter light was grey on her suit.

"You're early for Monday," she said.

"I have something for you."

I crossed the carpet and held out the page.

She looked at it and didn't take it.

"What is that?"

"The letter Gordon wrote the night before he left. He never mailed it. He gave it to me on the porch last night."

"I don't need Gordon's apologies."

"It isn't an apology. It's a receipt."

That made her turn.

She took the page from my hand, and her bandaged fingers held it badly.

I watched her read the first line, and then the second.

She read the rest standing, with her mouth shut.

It took her longer than it should have for one page.

"Your father," I said. "Your father brought him a check."

"Thirty thousand dollars," Mom said, reading the number out loud.

"Did you know?"

"No."

"Not at the time, and not after?"

"He told me Gordon had written to say he wasn't coming back," she said. "He told me Gordon had decided on Singapore. He was very gentle about it."

"You didn't ask him how he knew."

"He was my father." She looked down at the paper again. "He took care of things. That was what he was for."

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