Chapter 18: Marsh Road

"He said don't come," said Roz.

"He's alone in his dead father's other house," I said. "I'm going."

Marsh Road ran out past the edge of Burlington, where the city gave way to bare maples and plowed fields.

The house was small and yellow, with a swing on the porch and a tidy garden under the snow.

Declan's truck stood in the drive.

The front door opened before we reached the steps.

A woman about my mother's age looked out at us. She wore a grey cardigan and held a dish towel.

"You'll be the wife," she said to me. "And you'll be the friend."

"Yes," said Roz.

"He's in the kitchen. Wipe your feet."

Declan sat at a little table by the window with a cup of tea going cold in front of him.

His face was wet. He stood up when he saw us, and then sat down again.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I just wanted to see it."

"It's all right," I said.

I pulled out a chair and Roz took the one beside it.

The woman filled the kettle at the sink. She did not hurry.

"Your father told me he was a widower," she said.

Declan looked up. "He said that to you?"

"For two years."

She set the kettle on the stove. Her hand stayed on the handle.

"Did you leave when you found out?" Roz asked.

"I'd lost his baby by then." She said it to the window. "There was nowhere I wanted to go."

Declan pushed his cup away. I put my hand over his.

"Your mother came here once a year," the woman said. "Do you know why?"

"No."

She crossed to a drawer by the sink and pulled it open. It was packed edge to edge with slips of paper, rubber-banded in bundles.

"She brought the check. Quincy Foundation family fund, every month, twenty years. She signed every one."

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