The Men Who Walked Out novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Gate

Dad's grey sedan sat on the shoulder outside the Newport gate with its engine off.

It was snowing lightly.

The snow had settled on the roof and windshield, and the car had been there long enough that it wasn't melting.

Elliot parked behind it.

"Do you want me to come?" he asked.

"Wait here," I said. "Please."

I walked up the road and tapped on the passenger window.

Dad unlocked the door without looking at me.

I got in.

The car smelled of cold air and smoke.

He sat with both hands on the wheel and a cigarette burning between two fingers.

He was looking up through the windshield at the east wing, where one window glowed yellow behind the bare trees.

"Your mother used to stand in that window when I came home late," he said. "She'd wave."

"Dad."

"That window was dark for twenty years, and now she keeps it lit for him."

I took the cigarette out of his fingers.

He let me.

I rolled the window down an inch and dropped it into the snow.

"You quit," I said. "You told me every Christmas. You said you threw the pack in the hospital trash the day I was born."

"I did."

"Why that day?"

He turned his head and looked at me for the first time since we left the house.

His eyes were red.

"When you're ready," he said. "I'll tell you why. Not before you're ready."

"Ready for what?"

He shook his head.

A man was walking down the drive toward the gate, in a dark coat, with a thermos in his hand.

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