I Died Afraid My Broken Arm Burdened Them novel · Chapter 11 of 24
Chapter 11: The First Name on the List
The biggest number in the notebook was on a page from last June.
Birthday party, Larkspur Lane, daughter's sixteenth. Knelt on the drive for two hours. Thirty-eight thousand dollars. Sent to Mom.
My mother stared at that line for a long time.
Then she stood up from Dale's bunk and said, "Take me there."
"Ma'am, it's seven in the morning."
"I know what time it is."
Dale looked at the urn and then at her face.
He took his keys from the dresser.
Larkspur Lane was a curving street with brick houses and wide lawns, the kind I had delivered food to a thousand times and never once been invited past the porch.
Number fourteen had a white garage door and a bouquet of faded balloons still tied to the mailbox.
My mother got out of the car with the urn against her hip and the notebook in her hand.
She walked up the front path and rang the bell.
I stood beside her on the mat.
I knew this door.
I had come to it in a white shirt on a hot afternoon. I had been told where to kneel.
A man in a gray quarter-zip answered, holding a cup of coffee.
He had a pleasant, tired face.
"Yes?"
"My name is Paula Marden," my mother said.
His eyes moved to the urn.
I watched him recognize her. He was a man who read the news.
"Mrs. Marden. I'm so sorry for your loss. I saw the video. Terrible, just terrible."
"Last June you held a birthday party for your daughter."
He blinked.
"Yes?"
"You paid my son thirty-eight thousand dollars to kneel on your driveway for two hours."
The coffee cup tilted.
"I don't..."
She held up the notebook.
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