Chapter 14: Say It Plainly

At two minutes past nine, the receptionist stood up from her desk and did not bow.

"Ms. Renberg," she said. "He is here."

I put down my pen.

Across the room, the woman in red glasses took her headset off.

The shy engineer stood up too, and then everyone else did, one chair at a time.

Nobody said a word.

Dojin walked around his desk and fell in half a step behind my shoulder.

We went out to the lobby together, the whole team.

Colson was standing by the glass doors with a bunch of tulips in his fist.

They were the same yellow ones as the bunch on our counter in Seattle.

He wore yesterday's shirt, and his nose and forehead were peeling from the Maui sun.

He saw me, and his whole face tried to turn into the old one.

"Sue," he said. "Thank God."

"Hello, Colson."

He looked at the people lined up behind me, and I watched him decide to use them.

"Okay," he said. "I'm going to say this in front of everyone, because I owe you that."

His voice shook in all the right places.

"I lied to you. For a long time. I'm sorry."

"I was scared you'd find out how little I was making, and I got in over my head, and I hurt you."

"I'll do anything. Come home, and I'll spend my life fixing it."

He held out the tulips.

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