Chapter 21: Ask First

Tristan's POV

On Sunday night at ten, I sat at our kitchen table with my laptop and a cold cup of coffee.

Vivian was asleep in the bedroom with the door ajar.

She had left it that way on purpose, so I would know I could come in.

I had two emails open.

One was to Dennis Tidwell.

It said that I wanted nothing from Monday's announcement, no title and no say.

It was the first email I had ever written that I had not drafted four times.

The other was blank.

I had a way of writing to my wife that I was trying to retire.

It involved a calendar, a subject line and no sentence that ended in a question mark.

I typed: Monday. Sit next to me. Accept.

I looked at it for a while.

Then I deleted the last word and typed: Please.

At ten-thirty someone knocked on the apartment door with an elbow.

I opened it, and my mother was in the hall with her coat on over a bathrobe and a pie in a carrier.

"It's late," I said.

"I knew you'd be up. You have your father's face when you're composing."

"Mom."

"Let me in. This is hot, and your wife's father's recipe is not forgiving."

She marched past me, put the pie on the counter and began to open cabinets.

"It's lemon," she said. "Stanley gave me the card. I made it twice. The first one was a crime."

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