Chapter 20: Hands

Vaughn's POV

I reached the east wing of Harbor House in nineteen minutes, and I met my father in the corridor on his way out.

His cane tapped the linoleum. A nurse trotted behind him with his hat.

He was grey in the face, and for the first time in my life he did not look kind.

"Vaughn," he said. "You're early."

"You're leaving."

"I only brought flowers."

"Nurse," I said, "would you please take his flowers to the trash?"

She looked at me, then at him, and went into Room 14 to do it.

"You're being childish," my father said.

"Come near her mother again and I stop being polite."

"You've never been polite."

"I've been your son. It isn't the same thing, and it's over."

He studied me for a long second.

"The tenth, then," he said. "I'll see you at the board."

He walked past me down the hall, and I did not turn to watch him go.

Inside, Maureen Kilgallon sat upright in her chair with a spot of color in each cheek.

Tara stood beside her with one hand pressed over her mouth, and her phone was in the other.

"You're... late," Maureen told me.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Kilgallon."

"I said... a sentence." Her eyes glittered. "All in... one go."

"I heard about it on the way down the hall," I said. "The nurses were reciting it."

Tara made a sound that was half laugh and half sob, and I did not touch her, because she hadn't asked me to.

She came to the penthouse at ten o'clock that night.

She used the key.

I heard it turn from the sofa, where I had been staring at a legal pad for three hours, and I stood without meaning to.

She stood inside the door in her good coat with her hair loose.

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