Chapter 22: Rupert's Last Question

Rupert came on Saturday, the day the wedding should have been, and he walked up the lane again.

I was on my knees on the porch, sanding the split rail, and I let him get all the way to the steps.

Cal's truck was gone.

He had taken my grandmother's portrait to town, and he had not wanted to leave me alone, and I had told him to go.

"I'm not staying," Rupert said.

"You've said that."

"This time I mean it. I've got nothing to stay for." He tried to smile and failed. "That came out wrong."

"Sit on the step."

"Greta."

"If you're going to say something, you can do it where I don't have to look up."

He sat down on the bottom step with his hands between his knees.

For a while he just looked at the lake.

It was white and flat to the far shore, and two men in orange coats were walking out onto it, dragging a sled.

"Marcy was arraigned yesterday," he said. "Filing a false report, fraud, the fund. The county attorney says there may be more."

"And you?"

"A charge. They'll give me a date. Carl's father drove me to the lawyer himself and sat in the waiting room."

"Why?"

"He said I'd done the hard thing, and someone ought to be in the room."

I put down the sandpaper.

Rupert reached into his coat, and my whole body went tight, and he saw it.

"It's only this," he said gently.

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