Chapter 5: Day Eleven

On the eleventh day, I drove into town to pack what was mine.

I had slept at the orchard every night since the road.

I hadn't slept much.

When I closed my eyes, I heard my own voice saying please on a tape I'd listened to once, and a man's voice saying copy.

The house on Aspen Court was Dalton's idea of a home, white and glass, with a lawn a company mowed on Tuesdays.

His car wasn't in the driveway.

I stood on the front step with the key in my hand, and my phone buzzed.

Dalton had texted: "You're being dramatic. Come home and we'll talk about the post like adults."

It was the first thing he had sent me since the porch.

I read it standing on his doorstep.

Eleven days.

My grandmother had been in the ground for seven of them, and the thing he had found to say was dramatic.

I typed back: "I'm picking up my things."

Then I opened the door.

The house smelled like tomatoes and basil.

There was a pot on the stove, and the radio was playing low in the kitchen, and Piper Lanning was standing at my counter in my apron.

"Hannah!"

She dropped the spoon and came around the counter with her arms already out.

"Oh, honey. I didn't think you'd come. Dal said you wouldn't."

I let her hug me, because there was nothing in my body that knew how to do anything else.

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