Chapter 5: Phyllis's Kitchen

Carol packed my suitcase with me, one hand on her cane and the other on the zipper.

"Go," she said at the door. "I have a sister in Kettering. She'll come get me tonight."

She tapped her cane on the mat.

"If my son wants his mother, he can ask her nicely."

I kissed her cheek.

It was the first time in eighteen months I had left her without checking her pill box.

Giles carried the suitcase to the car.

He drove us to his mother's house, a small white colonial with a porch swing and a pot of dead mums by the steps.

Phyllis had beaten us there.

She met me in the doorway in an apron and took both my hands before I had said a word.

"You're staying here tonight," she said. "No, don't argue. I'm making grilled cheese, and you're going to eat two."

"I don't want to put you out."

"Sweetheart, I tore your picture down in front of three hundred people. I'm already in it."

She pulled me into the kitchen.

It smelled of butter and onions and old wood.

I sat down at the table where I had eaten pie at nine years old, the summer Phyllis worked at my school.

Giles stood in the doorway.

"Sit," Phyllis told him. "Get her some ice. That welt is a mess."

He opened the freezer, found a bag of peas, and wrapped it in a dish towel.

Then he pulled a chair around next to mine.

"Give me your arm."

I held it out.

He turned it over, and his fingers slid under my wrist to support it.

The cold bag settled onto the red mark and I hissed.

"Sorry."

"It's fine."

His thumb rested against the inside of my wrist, right on my pulse.

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