Chapter 21: A Seat at the Table

The green truck was parked under a bare maple, and Caleb was sitting behind the wheel with a half-eaten donut.

I opened the passenger door and climbed in.

He put the donut on the dash.

"Your dad told you."

"He said you're scared of my mother."

"I'm scared of your mother."

"That's smart."

The heater ticked. The windshield had a thin gray fog on it.

I looked up the street at my parents' house.

My grandmother was still on the porch swing, with a blanket over her knees and a cup of my mother's tea.

"I read your page four times," I said.

"Four."

"You wrote that you planned to tell me at the dock."

"I did."

"I'm not angry about the plan, Caleb. My mother has had plans since before I was born. I'm angry you let me fight blind."

"I know."

"You knew what I was walking into, and you let me swing at it."

"Yes."

"If you had told me, I'd have been furious for a day, and then I'd have helped."

"I believe you."

"So here's the new rule."

He turned in the seat to face me.

"No plan with my name in it that I'm not in the room for," I said.

"Not my mother's, not yours, not mine. If I'm in it, I'm at the table."

"Agreed."

"That's it?"

"What else is there to say?"

"Say it back."

"No plan about you without you." His voice was low. "Ever."

I leaned across the bench seat and kissed him.

It was slow, and it tasted like powdered sugar.

When I pulled back, his eyes were closed.

"Take me home," I said. "Mine, not yours."

He drove us there with one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around my fingers.

My apartment over the dry cleaner is warm in November, because the pressing machines run all day under the floor.

He had never seen it.

He stood in the doorway of my one room and looked at the narrow bed.

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