Chapter 22: Tuesdays

Brent was twenty minutes early on Tuesday, and he sat in his car at the curb until the clock hit four.

Norm watched him from the front window with his arms folded.

"He's got a bag," Norm said.

"I know."

"He's been sitting there since three-forty."

"Good," I said. "He can wait."

I had made the rules in the lawyer's office, and Norm had made me say them twice.

Twenty minutes, Tuesdays, at my father's kitchen table.

Norm in the room, and me in the next one.

No gifts I hadn't looked at, no talk about the past, and no touching Posy unless I said so.

Brent knocked at four exactly.

He came in with his hat in his hand and a plastic grocery bag.

His hair was cut, and the tie was plain, and I saw that he had lost weight.

"Thank you for this," he said.

"Don't thank me. Sit."

He sat.

I put Posy in Norm's arms, and Norm put her in Brent's, in one smooth movement with no ceremony.

Brent held her stiffly, with his elbows out.

Her face puckered.

"She doesn't like that," he said.

"Hold her closer," Norm said. "She wants to hear your heart."

"I'm bad at this."

"You've held her once in your life. You're supposed to be bad at it."

Brent drew her closer.

She stopped crying and stared up at him.

He stared back, and his eyes filled.

I stood in the doorway and watched, and I did not feel sorry for him.

I felt something quieter than that.

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