Done in Fifteen Years novel · Chapter 16 of 32

Chapter 16: Come Home

I lifted Macey's feet off my lap and set them on the porch boards.

She didn't wake up.

"Take her in, Deke," I said.

Deke came up the steps past Darrell without looking at him.

He picked Macey up out of the lawn chair, cap and all, and carried her inside.

The screen door eased shut behind them.

Darrell watched him go.

Then he came up two steps and held out the box.

"I figured you'd want this," he said.

I took it.

The rooster on the lid was worn down to the wood where my mama's thumb had opened it ten thousand times.

Inside were her cards, in her slanty pencil.

Catfish batter. Hush puppies. Chess pie, with "Ray likes it burnt on top" in the corner.

"I didn't let Mama throw it out," Darrell said.

"Was she going to?"

He didn't answer that.

He sat down on the top step, below me, with his elbows on his knees.

"Kilgore's is coming apart," he said. "You've read the reviews."

"The Lone Pine woman's been to the flagship four times."

"I know. She was here at noon."

He sat with that a while.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. Here's what I came to say."

He turned on the step so he could see me.

"Come home. I'll have the lawyer tear up the separation paper in front of you. You'll never see it again."

"And then?"

"You cook through Labor Day, the sale closes, and we start over. A salary. A real one."

He swallowed.

"Your name on the rub, Ray. Not Mama's. I'll have new jars made."

"And page nine?"

"Page nine's what this whole mess is about. Let it go, and we've got forty million dollars and no fight."

"You've got forty million dollars."

"We're married."

"Not for long."

He put his hand on my knee.

It was the first time he'd touched me in I didn't know how long.

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