When the Road Went Silent novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Her Father's Shop

The key opens Gene's old shop on the lakeshore. Ward guards the step and cleans her lip. She tells him she saw him abstain. Headlights: Kayla comes alone with an ultrasound.

Ward's bike led me down Lake Road for twelve minutes and then turned onto a dirt track I had never driven.

The track ended at the water.

A low cinderblock garage sat on the shore with a rusted tin roof and one window.

I had passed the lake a thousand times and never once seen it.

"This is Pellham ground," Ward said when I climbed out.

"I know every acre my father owned."

"You knew the ones he told you about."

He nodded at the door.

I slid the brass key into the lock and it turned without a catch.

Somebody had oiled it.

"Did you?" I said.

"Every spring."

Inside it smelled of motor oil and cold ash.

There was a workbench along one wall and a cot with a folded grey blanket.

In the corner stood a motorcycle under a canvas tarp.

I pulled the tarp back.

It was my father's old Harley, the black one with the dented tank, the one he said he'd ride until they buried him on it.

My throat closed.

I set his photograph on the workbench with my back to Ward so he wouldn't see my face.

The glass in the frame had cracked across one corner.

I touched it, and a shard bit into my palm.

"Maxine."

"I'm fine."

"You're bleeding."

I looked down.

Blood ran down my wrist and dripped on the concrete.

He crossed the floor and took my hand in both of his.

His fingers were callused and very careful.

He turned my palm up, picked a sliver of glass out with his thumbnail, and pressed a rag from the bench against the cut.

"Hold that."

I held it.

He opened a first-aid tin from a shelf, which my father had stocked and Ward had apparently kept stocked, and wound gauze around my hand twice.

His own hands weren't quite steady.

I noticed and decided it was the cold.

"You abstained," I said.

His jaw moved.

"Yes."

"Five of them stood with me. You could have made it six, and the vote would have tied."

"I know the count, Max."

"Then why?"

He tied off the gauze and didn't let go of my hand.

"I can't tell you yet," he said.

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have tonight."

I should have yanked my hand back.

I didn't.

His thumb stayed against the inside of my wrist where my pulse was running too fast.

I looked at the scar through his left eyebrow so I wouldn't look at his mouth.

Neither of us said anything for a long time.

Then he let go and stepped back.

"I'll stay on the step," he said. "You take the cot."

"You don't have to."

"Cade will send someone. Boone, most likely. I'm not leaving you out here alone."

"So you abstain, and then you guard the door."

"Yes."

"That makes no sense."

"It will," he said. "Lock it behind me."

I locked it.

I lay down on the cot in my jacket and listened to the water slap the shore.

Through the wall I could hear him settle on the concrete step.

I thought about seven years of Sunday dinners.

I thought about a pink fingernail tapping my father's glass.

Then, against my will, I thought about Ward Hennessy's thumb on my wrist.

I hadn't been touched like that in a year, not even by my husband.

I turned my face into the blanket and hated that I'd counted.

Sometime after midnight I fell asleep.

I woke to light moving across the ceiling.

It came through the one window in a slow white sweep, and then went still.

An engine idled outside.

A car door shut.

Boots hit the step, and Ward's voice came through the wall, low and flat.

"Stop there."

"I just want to talk to her." It was a woman's voice.

"Not tonight."

"Then give her this."

I was at the door before I knew I'd stood.

I opened it a hand's width.

Kayla Brisco stood on the gravel in the headlights of a white sedan.

She had changed into jeans and a black sweater, and her cheek was still faintly red.

She was alone.

In her hand she held a square of glossy paper.

"I came to show you something," she said.

She held it up in the light.

It was an ultrasound picture, a grey curl against a black background, with Kayla's name and last week's date printed across the top.

"He drove me to the appointment himself," Kayla said. "That's his baby."

Her voice shook, and for the first time I couldn't tell whether it was from nerves or from glee.

"And tonight," she said, "he's moving me into your house."

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