Chapter 15: One Table

Floyd's POV

Meredith woke me with her hand flat on my chest.

"The workshop light is on," she said. "Grandpa's at the hospital."

I was into my jeans before she finished.

We went across the wet grass together, her in my coat, me with a tire iron I'd taken from under the bed.

The door was unlocked, and the lamp was on over the bench.

My cousin sat on Clifford's stool with his boots up and a thermos, eating a sandwich.

"Hey, Kijin," he said, with his mouth full.

I lowered the tire iron.

"Fern told me to sit on the shop," he said. "After the brake line. Somebody has to, and I don't sleep."

"You couldn't have said that on the way in?"

"You were busy." He looked at Meredith in my coat, and then at my bare feet, and went back to his sandwich. "Congratulations."

Meredith made a sound that was half a laugh and half a groan.

She walked to the bench and looked at the clock.

It was whole now, a tall mantel clock in a walnut case, with a brass pendulum hanging still.

"He's been at this since March," she said. "He told me it was a hobby."

"It's a good hobby," my cousin said. "Open the back."

She looked at him.

"Fern said Clifford told her to tell you. The papers aren't in the safe. The safe is where Gerald will look."

Meredith lifted the little brass latch on the back of the case.

A flat envelope was taped to the inside of the walnut, behind the works.

She peeled it free and read the first page, and her eyes went wide.

"He signed it over," she said. "Fifty-one percent. All of it, to me, with the vote. The date is three weeks ago."

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