Chapter 19: Say Choose Me

I went to the Brookline house that Friday night to answer her letter in person.

The lock didn't know my thumb, so I rang the bell like a guest.

Adeline opened the door in a gray sweater, barefoot, with her hair down.

She looked at me and did not say a word.

"I got your letter," I said.

"Come in."

The living room was bare.

The photo wall was gone, and so were the streamers, the cards and the framed bets.

Only the wedding portrait leaned against the far wall, with a long crack through the glass.

"Preston's carton left a dent in it," she said. "I couldn't throw it out."

"You could have hung it."

"I couldn't look at it."

She stood in the middle of the room with her arms crossed.

I put my hands in my coat pockets.

"Seven days," I said. "Why?"

"Because I don't know how else to ask."

"You could ask me straight."

"I did that at your kitchen table, and you told me to go."

"You came to be kind," I said. "I told you I didn't know what to do with it."

"Then tell me what you do know."

I took a breath, and it came out harder than I meant.

"In the first year you promised it was the first time and the last time," I said.

"You kissed me in the hall, and I believed you."

Adeline's face changed.

"I know that in the second year you opened the guest room door and told me it was one night."

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