Chapter 22: Forty Minutes Late

I got home at twenty to one.

The lamp was on in my mother's kitchen window, the way he had promised.

Garner had driven the whole way with both hands on the wheel and said almost nothing.

He parked at the end of the lane and stayed in the car.

"I'll sleep out here," he said. "Tell Poppy I'll make pancakes."

"Come in the house, Garner."

"Not tonight."

I walked the last stretch alone.

Elliot was sitting on the porch step with a blanket over his knees.

He stood up when he saw me.

He did not say anything for a moment, and neither did I.

"You said midnight," he said at last.

"I'm forty minutes late."

"I noticed."

"There was a police matter."

"I heard." He nodded toward the boat shed. "We watched all of it."

"One of them cried," he said.

"Which one?"

"I won't say."

I laughed, and it came out as a sob, and he crossed the porch in two steps and put both arms around me.

He smelled of sawdust and cold air.

I put my face into his shirt, and I said it, all of it, into the cotton.

"I'm sorry I said I wanted it back."

"You didn't mean it."

"I knew you'd hear it."

"I did hear it." His hand moved slowly over my hair. "I got it wrong, Sadie."

"I was waiting for you to leave me for it," he said. "I've been waiting for that for three years."

"I know."

"I watched you say no in front of five million people."

"Six."

"Six." His voice shook. "I should have known on the dock the first day. You weren't ever going to turn toward it."

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