Chapter 18: Mother's Key

I sat up with my shirt half buttoned and could not move.

Kirk was already pulling on his jeans.

"The wardrobe," I whispered.

"Camilla, please," my mother said through the wood. "Your father will hear me."

Kirk stepped into the wardrobe among my old coats and drew the door to.

I unlocked my bedroom door and opened it a hand's width.

My mother stood in the hall in a wool coat over her nightgown, with her hair flat on one side and a small suitcase at her feet.

She smelled of cold air and the inside of a car.

"Mother," I said. "You're in Vermont."

"I walked out at four yesterday. I told the nurse I was going to the garden."

"A taxi took me to the train, and the train took me here."

"Sheridan doesn't know?"

"Sheridan's friend runs the clinic, darling. By morning she'll know."

She came in and I closed the door behind her.

My mother looked at the rumpled quilt and the lamp turned low.

She looked at my face, and then, very slowly, at the wardrobe.

"There's a man's boot on the floor," she said.

"Yes."

"The mechanic," she said. "Mr. Corliss."

The wardrobe door opened a few inches.

"Mrs. Winslade," Kirk said.

"You're Chadwick's brother." She said it quietly, without any surprise. "I saw you at the funeral. You stood at the back, and you cried."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I'm sorry," she said. "He's alive. You've had to find that out as well."

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