A Decade For Nothing novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: In My Mother's Kitchen

Lydia's POV

I went home on Tuesday evening with Ada Harrow's paper in my bag.

I had been carrying it for three days.

I had read it so many times the folds had gone soft.

Home was the house I grew up in, where I had been sleeping in my old room since the wedding.

The maples at the end of the drive were turning gold at the tips.

I had asked myself one question for three days, and I had no answer.

If Levi was in the ER, who was in the photograph?

The front hall was dark.

Dad's car was in the garage.

Macy's was parked by the fountain, which was odd, because she had said she'd be at her own place tonight.

I took my shoes off at the door, because my mother had always hated heels on the hallway floor.

The house was quiet.

I went toward the study, to ask Dad about the card.

I had practiced it in the shower.

Dad, whose card ended in 4471?

The study door stood half open.

I went in to leave a note on his desk.

It was the closet door that stopped me.

It stood open, and hanging inside on a wooden hanger, still in a dry cleaner's plastic bag, was a man's navy overcoat.

I knew it before I touched it.

I slid the plastic up.

The left cuff was patched with a small square of grey wool, sewn with darker thread.

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