Chapter 14: What the Comments Say

"It's cold in here," I said.

"It's a walk-in. That's the point of it."

He stood between me and the door with his arms folded.

"That boy had been told where to trip," he said. "You told the room before he moved. Nobody guesses that."

"I'm good at guessing."

"You're good at reading a room. This was different. You knew it was coming before you got here. You put your hands behind your back on the way in."

[uh oh]

[TELL HIM. just tell him]

I looked at the words glowing over his left shoulder.

Then I looked at him.

For two years I'd told this man nothing that mattered, because he never asked.

He was asking.

"If I tell you," I said, "you have to let me finish. Like the restaurant."

"All right."

"And you can't call Gran's doctor."

"Hen."

"Promise."

"I promise."

So I told him.

I told him all of it, start to finish, in the order it happened.

It took twenty minutes. The cold got into my teeth and I kept going.

The only part I stumbled on was the book itself, and what it said about him.

He didn't interrupt once.

He didn't laugh either.

When I finished, he was quiet for a long time. His breath kept smoking in the cold.

"Are they here now?"

"Over your shoulder."

"What are they saying?"

[oh no. read him the bad one]

[she won't. she can't]

I could.

"There's a line they quote a lot," I said. "From later in the book. After the divorce. You say it to Maxine."

"Say it."

"'I never loved her. She was a placeholder. I needed a wife by June.'"

He took it straight, the way he'd taken "on paper" on the hotel steps.

"I've never said that," he said.

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