Chapter 4: The Visit

Pieter Verwey came to my house on Tuesday afternoon, alone, with a folded quilt under one arm.

I saw him through the front window, climbing the porch steps one at a time with his oxygen bottle on its strap.

A prospect sat behind the wheel of the truck at the curb, with the engine running.

I opened the door before Pieter could knock.

"Kid," he said, and smiled. "Can an old man come in out of the cold?"

I let him in.

I told myself it was because I wanted to hear what he would say.

He lowered himself onto my kitchen chair, the one Joost always took, and set the quilt on the table.

It was a patchwork of blue and yellow squares, softened by washing.

"Marijke made this," he said. "Joost's mother. Back when we thought there'd be a grandchild any year. She'd want it to go to a good home."

I did not touch it.

"Say what you came to say, Pieter."

He sighed and drew a long breath from his oxygen line.

"I was hard on you Sunday," he said. "That was a rough room. I want you to know I never wanted it to go that way. You were good for my boy."

"Then why did you take my chair?"

"Because the club needed a baby, Femke."

He said it so simply that it took me a moment to understand it.

"Eleven weeks," he said. "A Verwey baby, with a mother who can sit beside me at the table, and a vote coming in March. It was never about you."

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