Chapter 11: Liberty

"Making sure," I said.

My voice sounded far away.

"Making sure of what, Win?"

"That I stayed on."

Gage looked at me, then back at the road.

"You know who she is," he said. It wasn't a question.

"Her name is Tinsley."

He didn't say anything for a long time.

Then he put his blinker on, pulled onto the shoulder of the New Jersey Turnpike, put the truck in park, and sat with both hands on the wheel.

Trucks blew past us and rocked the cab.

"The sister," he said. "The one who cried about the bedroom."

"Yes."

"She was seven."

"She was seven," I said. "And she came back to check."

Gage hit the steering wheel once with the flat of his hand.

Then he put the truck back in drive.

"We're going home," he said.

We got to Liberty a little after nine in the morning.

The water tower. The feed store. The Dollar General with the busted sign.

Mama's house sat at the end of Pine Street with its narrow porch and its peeling green trim and the glider that squeaked if you breathed on it.

I stood in the yard and looked at it for a long time.

In my first life, I never came back here.

Quentin's people told Gage I didn't want contact, and Gage believed it, because Gage believes what you tell him about yourself.

He stopped calling the second year.

"You coming in, or you want to stand out there and admire the gutters?" Gage said from the door.

The kitchen smelled the same. Coffee and Pine-Sol and something fried a long time ago.

I put the tin box on the table.

Then I opened the drawer by the fridge, the one where Mama kept the bills.

Gage said, "Win, don't," too late.

There were six letters from the bank in there, unopened.

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