A Decade For Nothing novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Porch Light

Lydia came at six on Sunday with nothing in her hands, because Nan had told her to.

Nan fed her pot roast anyway.

She watched Lydia eat two helpings and said nothing at all.

Joel left after the pie, with a speech about a dog that needed walking.

Nan said her wrist hurt and went up to bed at half past eight.

That left the porch.

The old swing hung from two chains Nan's husband had screwed into the beam forty years ago.

I had sat on it every summer of my childhood.

Lydia took the far end.

I took the near one, with the whole width of the swing between us.

For a while neither of us talked.

A moth worked at the yellow bulb over our heads.

"I have to tell you something about the watch," Lydia said.

"All right."

"I didn't ask you to apologize because it was calm. That was the story I told myself."

She was looking at her hands.

"Dad called me into the study that night. He said he had a witness."

"A witness to what?"

"He said if you didn't say sorry on Nan's driveway, he'd file a police report on Monday."

I turned my head.

"You were studying for the nursing boards," she said. "A report with your name on it. I thought, one apology, one bad afternoon. I thought I was saving your career."

"You never told me."

"I was ashamed of him," Lydia said. "I'd rather you thought I was cowardly than know my father would do that."

I sat very still.

For seven years I had believed she picked her father's peace over my pride.

I had built a whole wall out of it.

"I thought you never trusted me for a day," I said. "I thought ten years was just him tolerating me and you going along."

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