Chapter 15: What He Sold

Maggie opened her front door in a bathrobe and took one look at the three of us.

"I've got a mattress, a cat and no questions," she said. "The questions start tomorrow."

Lydia stood on the step with her hospital bag.

"Dr. Foley, I'm so sorry."

"Maggie. Mind the cat. He bites anyone who apologizes."

She made up the spare room in six minutes.

She talked about the price of dog food the whole time, so that Lydia would not have to say a word.

At the bedroom door Lydia turned back to me.

"Will you be here when I wake up?"

"I'll be across the city. I'll be at the clinic at eight."

"That's not what I asked."

"I know," I said. "I'll be at the clinic at eight."

She nodded and shut the door.

Miles had waited in the car the whole time.

He drove me home and did not speak, and neither of us moved when he parked.

"I need to do something in the morning," he said. "Before I tell you what."

"All right."

"I'm going to a lawyer. A real one, not my father's. I'm paying for it."

"With what?"

He pushed up his left sleeve.

His grandfather's watch was gone from his wrist.

The skin underneath was paler than the rest of him.

"A man on Weybosset Street gave me four thousand dollars for it on Sunday morning, before I drove to Bridgeport. I didn't tell you."

"Miles."

"It was always going to be mine to sell. I thought it was a good day for it."

I looked at the pale band of skin.

I looked at his hands on the wheel, a little unsteady.

In seven years he had never given up a single thing for me.

Not a dinner, not a Friday, not a lie he told his mother.

And he had walked into a pawn shop on a Sunday and walked out without his grandfather's watch.

"Come upstairs," I said.

"Clara, you don't have to."

"I know what I have to do. Come upstairs."

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