Chapter 11: What I Never Asked For

The foyer was quiet enough to hear the lemonade dripping from a tipped cup.

I looked at my daughter on the landing, with her duffel and her chin, and I did not say please.

"Okay," I said.

Her eyes flickered. "That's it?"

"You're old enough to say where you sleep." I opened my wallet and held out the laminated card. "Take this."

"I don't need it."

"It isn't for Delaney, and it isn't for me. It's for the next restaurant, the next party, the next person who says a little won't hurt."

She came down three steps and snatched the card out of my hand without touching my fingers.

She shoved it in her back pocket.

Gilbert grabbed her bag.

"We're leaving," he said to the whole room. "Come on, Delaney. We aren't staying one more night in a house where a man is treated like a tenant."

"You're welcome to stay the full thirty days," I said.

He slammed the door hard enough to shake the photos in the hall.

Delaney went last.

At the threshold, she looked back over her shoulder, not at me, but up at the staircase and the long banister.

Her hand rested on the post for a second.

Then she followed them out.

The neighbors found their keys, one by one, and took their lemonade cups with them.

The agent left her business card on the console and was gone before I turned around.

Simon locked the door behind her.

Then the house was just mine, and very large.

"You can sit down now," he said.

"I'm fine."

"Abby."

I made it to the kitchen island before my knees went.

He caught my elbow and set me on a stool.

I looked down at the tile floor where I had died.

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