Chapter 9: Twenty-Seven Roses

Thatcher took the hard hat in both hands.

He turned it over. Inside the band, in black marker, was a name in their father's square handwriting.

He ran his thumb across it.

"I didn't throw it away," he said. "I gave it to her. At the hospital. She said she'd keep it safe."

Crosby stared at him.

"She told everybody you tossed it," he said. "She told me you said you couldn't stand to look at it."

"I never said that."

"I know." Crosby's voice cracked on it. "I know that now. I was looking for Dad's old level for Ivey's video and I found it."

"Why bring it here?" Thatcher asked.

"Because it's yours." Crosby rubbed his face. "He'd have wanted you to have it."

Then he looked past his brother, up the stairs, at me in the quilt.

"Neel."

"Crosby."

"I made a mistake." He swallowed. "Twenty-seven of them. I know that."

"Go home, Crosby."

"I'm going to prove it to you. I'm not going to let you throw this away on a revenge marriage."

Thatcher stepped into the doorway, the hard hat still in his hands.

"It's seven in the morning," he said quietly. "And she said go home."

Crosby looked at his brother for a long moment.

Then he turned and walked out through the courtyard gate.

Thatcher shut the door.

I came down the stairs in the quilt and put my arms around him from behind.

He leaned back into me, just a little.

"Thank you," he said, and I didn't know if he meant me or the hat.

At two that afternoon, a florist's van pulled into my shop lot.

Twenty-seven red roses.

The card said, "One for every time I was wrong. Let me show you. C."

Tammy read it out loud in a deep, dramatic voice.

"Twenty-seven roses," Tammy said. "That's about three dollars a stand-up."

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