Love, Like Father Like Son novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The First Two

At six o'clock the study had a tea tray on the desk and two strangers sitting by the window.

My father stood between them with his hands folded.

"June, Chet," he said. "Thank you for coming. I should explain these ladies before anyone else does."

One of them was in her sixties, small and straight-backed, in a navy coat she hadn't taken off.

The other was about my mother's age, with cropped grey hair and a leather bag held in her lap with both hands.

I knew their faces from Roxy's printouts.

"I wrote to them," my father said. "By hand, after midnight, for three weeks. Women who've been robbed don't answer typed letters."

"That was the pen," I said.

"That was the pen."

Chet had stopped in the doorway.

He looked at the older woman, and I watched the color leave his face.

"I know you," he said.

"I wondered if you'd say so." She studied him without any softness. "You were the boy with the paper plate."

"Yes, ma'am."

"My husband's wake. Your father brought you to the house, and you stood in the kitchen and held a plate of cake for an hour. You asked me whether it was too sweet." Her voice didn't change. "I told you it was perfect. I was so grateful he'd brought a child."

"I'm sorry," Chet said.

"You were ten."

"I was ten. I'm twenty-nine now. I'm sorry."

She nodded slowly, and it was not forgiveness, but it was an acknowledgment, and he took it standing.

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