Wash Her Feet novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Hello, Frank

I told Rafe about Saturday, because I had already learned what keeping secrets from him would cost.

"She said alone," I told him on the phone. "If she sees your truck, she's gone."

"Then she doesn't see my truck." His voice was flat and low. "I'll be at the corner of Alder and Third, on foot."

"You can't come in."

"I know. Here's the rule instead." He paused. "If you turn the porch light on, I walk in. Doesn't matter what she says."

"The porch light's on a switch inside the front door."

"Then you know where it is."

At one fifty-five that Saturday, I stood in my father's front hall with my back against the banister.

I had cleaned the house until it hurt.

I had set out two cups, because I did not know how else to behave.

At two exactly the iron gate squeaked.

I looked through the narrow window beside the door and saw Shelby standing on the sidewalk with her hand on the latch.

She wore her good black dress again.

She looked up at the house for a very long time.

Then she lifted the latch.

I watched the gate swing in.

She stepped onto the walk, onto my father's property, and for the first time in sixteen years she kept walking.

The porch steps creaked under her.

She did not knock.

I opened the door before she could, and she stood on the threshold looking at the hall behind me.

"May I?" she said.

She sounded polite and quiet, and her eyes were wet.

"Come in," I said.

She crossed the doorstep in one step, without any hesitation at all.

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