Chapter 7: Thirty-Two Years

He stopped at the bottom of my steps and didn't come up.

Up close, he smelled like woodsmoke and bleach.

"Mrs. Corbett."

"Mr. Ardley."

"Philip," he said. "I've known you since your wedding."

"You cooked the salmon."

"I did."

He turned his cap in his big hands.

"I want you to call off Friday."

I didn't answer.

"Whatever you think you know," he said. "It'll hurt people who never did anything to you."

"Like who?"

"Graham. He's a good man."

"He let his wife put my son's face on a screen and call him a bastard."

"He didn't know."

"He knows now. He still hasn't said sorry."

Philip looked at the ground.

[He doesn't know about the forged report. He found out from the stream like everyone else.]

[Thirty-two years ago, Patricia came to his kitchen every night for one summer.]

[He's always wondered. He's never asked.]

I looked at Philip's hands.

At his gray eyes.

Douglas had gray eyes.

Graham's were brown.

Patricia's were blue.

Tamara's were green like her father's side.

I'd never once thought about it.

"You're scared of the same thing she is," I said quietly.

His head came up.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Then why are you on my sidewalk?"

He opened his mouth.

He shut it.

"Friday," he said finally. "Please."

"Finley didn't get a please."

He put his cap back on and walked to his truck.

He sat in it for a long time before he drove away.

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