Chapter 22: The Milk Jug

Anneliese's POV

Nate told me about Dean and the car on a Tuesday night.

He stood in the cottage doorway with his keys still in his hand.

He said it plainly, and he said it first.

I sat down on the bottom step of the hall.

For seven years I had thought that hour in the car belonged to nobody but me.

"He saw me," I said.

"Yes."

"He drove past."

"Yes."

I waited to feel something enormous.

What I felt was smaller and more strange.

Somebody had seen me, even if it was the wrong somebody and far too late.

"I'm glad you told me," I said. "I'm glad it was you."

"I thought you'd want to throw something."

"I do," I said. "Come here first."

On Saturday I drove to a care home in Monrovia with a milk jug of delphinium on the passenger seat.

It was the old jug, the one Frances had found in the cellar, chipped at the lip.

Nate had cut the flowers that morning and wrapped the stems in wet paper.

I had not asked anyone's permission to go.

I had written the address on my hand.

The woman at the front desk looked at the jug and then at my face.

"Second floor," she said. "Room eleven."

Mallory was standing in the hall outside it.

She wore a gray cardigan and a staff lanyard.

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