Chapter 16: Not a Dunning

Margo stood in her kitchen at midnight with Lorna's folder open on the counter and her arms wrapped around herself.

"The board meets at ten," she said. "Dexter's lawyer will be in the room."

"Let him come."

"You don't understand what I'm afraid of."

"Tell me."

She did not look up.

"That one day you'll look at me across a table and see her face. My father's chin, her pearls. A Dunning."

"Margo."

"I have her mouth, Caleb. Everybody says it."

I took the folder out of her hands and shut it.

"You have your own mouth," I said. "It's the one that told Lorna to her face she was lying, in front of a recorder, in a cafeteria."

"That was spite."

"It was the bravest thing anybody in that family has done in fifteen years."

Her eyes came up, wet.

"You wrote me a letter nobody should have had to write," I said. "I was angry because I wanted the four years back. Not because of you."

"I know."

"Then hear this. When I look at you, I don't see a Dunning. I see the only person who tried."

She stepped into me and put her forehead against my collarbone.

"I want you to stay," she said into my shirt. "Tonight and tomorrow. I'm not asking for terms."

"There are no terms."

I tipped her chin up and kissed her slowly.

She opened her mouth under mine and I tasted tea and salt.

Her hands slid under my shirt and dragged it off over my head.

I pulled her gray cardigan down her arms.

"Shower," she said against my lips. "I smell like the hospital."

"I like how you smell."

"Shower first."

She took my hand and led me down the hall.

The bathroom was small and tiled in white.

She turned on the water and stepped out of her jeans while it ran hot.

Her body was soft and strong, a nurse's body, with a pale scar across her hip.

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