Revenge of the Scapegoat Heiress novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Box
Sheridan arrives in tears with a box of Camilla's old things and a job at the house, and as she leaves tells Camilla to ask Kirk his last name.
Sheridan found me on my second afternoon out.
I was holding a wrench Kirk had handed me to keep my hands busy.
A white coupe pulled up to the bay door.
She got out in flat shoes and no jewelry.
She carried a cardboard box on her hip, and her face was already wet.
"Milla," she said. "Please don't send me away. Ten minutes."
Kirk put down the socket set he was cleaning.
He stayed where he was, at the back of the bay.
"I know you hate me," Sheridan said. "You should. I'm not here to ask you to stop."
I didn't answer.
She set the box on the hood of the lifted truck.
My old gray sweater was folded on top, the one with the hole in the cuff.
Under it were my paperbacks and a hairbrush.
Under those lay a framed photo of two little girls on a porch swing.
I was nine in that photo, and she was eight, the week she came to live with us.
She had cried every night for a month until I let her sleep in my bed during thunderstorms.
I had been the first person in that house she trusted.
"Dad dictated what I said in court," Sheridan said.
"He what?"
"I was twenty-two. I'd lost my husband. He told me what happened, and I said it."
She pressed her fingers to her mouth.
"I have hated myself every day since."
"You said I threatened him."
"You did threaten him, Milla. In front of everybody."
It was true, so it landed.
"But I never believed you did it," she said.
"Not for one minute."
"I should have stood up. I didn't."
Her shoulders shook.
I had hated her for five years in the dark, in careful, specific detail.
I had not planned for her to be sorry.
"What do you want, Sheridan?"
"To fix it."
She wiped her face with her wrist.
"Dad's letter to your parole officer was a mistake. He was angry. I've talked to him."
"And?"
"If you work at my foundation, at the house, under my supervision, he'll withdraw it."
"Work as what?"
"My assistant. You'd have a salary and a room."
"At the house."
"You can come home, Milla. Not at the dinner table, not yet. But home."
She took a phone out of her jacket pocket and held it out.
"It's new. It's paid for. I put my number in already."
I looked at the screen.
Her name was at the top of the contacts, and it was the only one.
"Sunday dinner," she said. "Six o'clock. Mom's making the lemon chicken."
"I'll tell you Sunday."
"That's all I'm asking."
She turned to Kirk, and the smile she gave him was kind and complete.
"You must be the friend who drove her. Thank you. I mean it. Nobody else showed up."
"Nobody was invited," Kirk said.
Sheridan laughed gently.
Her gaze stayed on his face for one second longer than it needed to.
Then she touched my hand and walked back to the coupe.
I thought she was gone.
She stopped with her hand on the car door.
She spoke across the bay, low and friendly.
"Milla. Did he tell you his last name?"
"It's on the sign."
"Ask him anyway," Sheridan said, and drove away.
The bay smelled of oil.
Behind me, a socket wrench was set down very carefully on a steel bench.
I turned around.
Kirk had not moved from the back wall.
He was looking at the box, and not at me.
"Rule two," he said. "You don't ask why."
"She just did my asking for me," I said.
He rubbed his jaw with the heel of his hand and didn't answer.
I picked up the photo of the two little girls on the swing and set it facedown.
"What's your last name, Kirk?"
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