Chapter 12: The Pen

The factory at six in the morning is the quietest place I know.

The presses are cold, and the sanding line sleeps under its dust covers.

The sodium lights on the loading dock hum without anyone to hear them.

Elias was sitting on the edge of the dock with his boots hanging over the concrete drop.

Beside him lay a thermos and a pen.

Under the thermos, folded in thirds, was the divorce petition my mother had left on our kitchen table.

I sat down beside him.

"You took that," I said.

"She left it. I didn't want her to have another copy to wave around."

"It's mine to throw out."

"I know. That's what I'm here about."

He rubbed his palms down his thighs.

He had not shaved, and I could see the pulse beating under his jaw.

"Kasey," he said. "I haven't told you everything about myself."

My heart did something heavy and slow.

"I know," I said, and it was the truth, and it sounded like a lie, so I added, "Nobody does."

"I've kept something from you since before we met."

"Another woman?"

"God, no."

"A crime?"

"No."

"Money?"

He stopped breathing.

"Part of it," he said.

I looked out across the empty loading yard at the ice on the pavement and the dark windows of my family's building.

This was the moment.

I'd waited for it for five days, and for five days I had imagined what it would be like.

I was sure he would say it.

I was sure he'd turn to me with my own unforgiving eyes and say, Kasey, I'm the man in the letter.

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