Chapter 23: Not a Debt

He came at eight, through the front door, up the new step.

I had lit the stove and put a pot of my mother's tomato soup on it, because I didn't know what else to do with my hands.

Rafe stood in the kitchen with his coat on and didn't take a seat.

"Say it," I said.

"If I say it now, it sounds like I'm asking for something."

"Are you?"

"No."

He took a breath.

"You paid the house yourself. You beat Delaney yourself. You picked me in front of all those people when I'd given you every reason not to."

"I haven't earned that. I don't want you to forgive me because I fixed a step."

"Rafe."

"I want to be told no if it's no."

I turned off the burner.

I crossed the kitchen and stood right in front of him.

"It isn't no," I said.

"Hattie."

"I'm going to say it in my own words, so shut up and listen."

He shut his mouth.

"I was so angry that I picked the worst way to keep from being hurt."

"I decided you were a collector of strays and I was one of them."

"I'm not. I'm a woman with her mother's house and a job in Cleveland."

"And you told the truth about the worst thing you ever did in front of twenty-three people."

"I forgive you. Not for the step. Not for the list. Because I read thirty-one letters and the man in them has never once lied to me."

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