Chapter 14: Sisters

I didn't go back to her booth.

I picked up my tomatoes and walked out of the square with Patty on one side and Hayes on the other.

Nobody said anything until we got to the truck.

"Your sister's wearing your ring," Hayes said.

"I saw."

"Sized."

"I told her to."

Patty lit a cigarette for once and didn't put it out. "That girl looked like somebody kicked the cooler out from under her."

"She knew what he was," I said. "She was on the contract."

"Knowing and hearing aren't the same, kid."

That night I stayed late at the shop.

I told myself it was the cue sheets for the retirement show.

It was really that my house was too quiet and Hayes had gone home to soak his hands.

At eleven, headlights came up County Road 9 and stopped at the gate.

A little white car. One person in it.

I knew the car. I'd co-signed the lease on it when she was twenty-two.

I walked down and opened the pedestrian gate.

Chelsea got out in a big gray sweatshirt with the hood up. No makeup. No phone in her hand for once.

Her stomach pushed the sweatshirt out in front of her.

"Are you alone?" she said.

"Patty's home. Hayes is home. It's me and the magazines."

"Can I come in?"

I thought about saying no.

Then I held the gate.

She sat in Dustin's old chair in the office. I sat at my desk.

The ring was still on her finger. She kept turning it with her thumb.

"You did that on purpose," she said. "At my booth."

"I didn't know you had a booth."

"Everybody knew I had a booth. I posted it nine times."

"I muted you in June."

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