Chapter 17: Not Pity

That night I paced the bungalow with the petition in my hand.

I read it six times, and each time the word "unfit" sat in the same place on the page.

Tilda slept in the cot with her fist over her head.

The housekeeper had cooked for twelve and sent half of it down in covered bowls, and nobody had touched them.

"You're wearing a hole in the floor," Fraser said from the porch.

"I'm thinking."

"You're not. You're running the same sentence in a circle."

I stopped and looked at him.

He sat on the top step in a grey T-shirt with the sleeves pushed up.

His big forearms rested on his knees, and the lamp behind him lit the edge of his beard.

"Who told you I'd go back to him?" I said.

He didn't pretend.

"Corinna. On the pad."

"And you believed her."

"For about an hour." His mouth twisted. "Then you held my hand up in front of a quay full of fishermen."

"I'm very good in front of a quay."

"You are."

"Come here," I said.

He stood up slowly, and I took the paper and laid it face down on the table.

"I've spent the day being the calm one again," I said. "I'd like to stop."

"Tell me how."

"You take your shirt off."

He reached behind his neck and pulled it over his head in one move.

I put both palms flat on his chest and walked him back until his shoulders met the door frame.

His skin was hot, and the scar along his ribs was raised and pale under my thumb.

"Where's this from?"

"A winch cable. Eleven years ago."

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