Day Seven I Signed It novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Season Two

I looked at Gavin's hand and didn't take it.

"No," I said.

He kept it out for a moment longer.

Then he put it in his pocket.

"You don't get to be my brother because you were hurt," I said. "I'm sorry about what he did to you. I mean that. But you came into my house with a plan."

"I know."

"You laid every piece of it out for a year and a half. My wife, my key, my slippers. A bet on the exact day I'd sign."

"I never touched your wife," Gavin said. "I want you to know that. I sat on her couch and I listened, that's all. I slept in the guest room alone."

"That's what you want credit for?"

"It's all I've got."

My mother set her cup down.

"Gavin," she said gently. "Did you hate him, or did you want him?"

He turned his head toward her.

Nobody, I think, had ever asked him that before.

"Both," he said. "Every day."

"Yes," Joan said. "That sounds right."

I picked up the folded page.

It was a single sheet of lined paper, torn from a legal pad, the way my father had written notes all my life.

It had two names across the top, one under the other.

Colin. Gavin.

I read it standing up.

I'm a coward, it began.

I took a week to decide everything except the two of you.

I've written this nine times and burned eight.

I should have told you both while I was alive, and I couldn't stand to watch either of you look at me the way I deserve.

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