Chapter 4: Ask Him Why

It was raining when I pulled up to my father's house on Wednesday night.

Mallory's gray sedan was already parked at the curb with its engine running.

I could see her silhouette behind the fogged glass.

She had waited there for seventeen years of dinners, and I had never once asked why.

My father opened the door himself.

"There she is," he said, loud enough for the dining room to hear.

Six of his friends were seated around the long table, three builders and their wives.

Dean sat at my father's right hand, in my mother's old chair.

He stood up when he saw me, and his eyes were red.

"Annie," he said. "Thank God."

"Sit down, Dean," my father said, and Dean sat.

I did not take the seat they had set for me.

I stayed standing at the end of the table, with my wet coat still on.

"Dad, I have one question," I said. "Who owns Mom's cottage in Sierra Madre?"

The wives glanced at each other.

My father smiled at his guests to bring them in on it.

"It's held in my name, sweetheart. For tax reasons. We've talked about it."

"We haven't," I said. "Aunt Frances says it's been mine since I turned twenty-five."

"Frances has always had feelings about your mother," he said. "She isn't thinking clearly."

"You changed the lock last week."

"I had the roof inspected," he said, and one of the builders nodded.

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