How to Tame a Silver Fox novel · Chapter 29 of 32

Chapter 29: Terms

He did not come in.

He stood on the threshold with the envelope held out in front of him.

"I won't ask to sit," my father said.

"No," I said. "You won't."

The laughter had gone out of the room.

Junie's brother quietly put down a lobster claw.

Arlen's mother folded her napkin in her lap and looked at my father with the patience of a woman watching a pot.

"What is that?" I said.

"A statement for the state's attorney."

His voice was hoarse.

"I wrote it this afternoon in the car, while they cleared the lawn. It says I was driving."

I took it from him.

It was four pages in his small fast hand, with a coffee ring on the first one.

His signature at the bottom was blurred in two places.

"It isn't sworn," I said.

"It will be." He tried for a smile and failed. "Whoever takes it can swear me."

"Why bring it to me?"

"Because I don't know what to do next," my father said. "Tell me."

I looked at him for a long time.

I had been waiting twelve years for him to ask a question, and now that he had, I found I had an answer.

I set the envelope on the drop cloth between the lobster and the apple cake and counted off the terms on my fingers.

"One. You take that statement to the state's attorney yourself, on Monday."

"You swear to it, and you take whatever the law gives you."

"You don't hire anyone to make it smaller."

He swallowed.

"Two. You sign the thirty percent back to Arlen."

"And twenty percent more, in your own hand, so he holds half of what you built on his silence."

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