She Cried. They Buried Me. I Came Back. novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Thirty Days

In the boathouse Jerome sets three rules for thirty days; Hallie tells him his father's heart is failing and he must bring her to Sunday brunch.

Jerome's boathouse stood at the end of a plowed gravel road on the north shore of Lake Minnetonka.

Inside, a wooden boat hull sat upside down on wooden stands, half of it sanded pale and half still dark with old varnish.

A woodstove ticked in the corner. A narrow stair led up to a loft.

"Sit by the stove," Jerome said. "Give me your hands."

"Why?"

"You went out into the snow last night in a velvet dress and no coat. I watched you go."

I held out my hands.

He turned them over under the lamp and pressed a thumb against each fingertip, watching the color come back.

His hands were rough and warm, and he held mine a moment longer than the check took.

I saw his throat move.

"Medical," he said, and let go.

"I used to do that to patients," I said. "I was an ER nurse for three years."

"I know. You quit when you married my brother."

"You know that much about me?"

"I know he told everyone you quit because you loved him."

"I quit because his mother said a Lang wife doesn't work nights."

He nodded slowly and said nothing more about it.

I took the stool by the stove. My feet were in a pair of his wool socks that came to my knees.

"Here are my rules," Jerome said. "You can stay thirty days. After that you have a lease or you have a plan."

"All right."

"First, nobody touches anybody unless there's an audience that needs to see it."

"Fine."

"Second, no lies. If you can't tell me something, say so, and I won't push."

"Fine."

"Third, you never ask me why I'm doing this."

I looked at him.

He stood with his arms folded at the foot of his own stairs, a man with a crooked nose and a day of stubble who had not smiled once.

"That's a strange rule," I said.

"It's my house."

"Then I have one too. You watch something for me, and you don't tell me it's nothing."

"What?"

I took out my phone and played him the video from the staircase.

He stood behind my shoulder and watched Sabrina's weight shift back, her arm lift and her eyes find the lens.

He watched the long stare. He watched her laugh.

"Play it again," he said.

I played it again.

"She isn't surprised," Jerome said slowly. "Look at her face when she sees the phone. A person who stumbled and saw a camera would be embarrassed."

"What does she look like?"

"Somebody who just found out the plan changed."

The stove ticked. I held the phone against my knee.

Last night I had thought it was my imagination.

Jerome had seen it right away.

"Your turn," he said. "Tell me what you wanted me to watch for."

"Your father."

His face did not change, but he went very still.

"What about him?"

"I eat dinner with your father every Thursday at the house," I said. "Two nights ago his lips were gray when he came up the porch steps."

"He's sixty-six."

"His ankles were swollen over his shoes. He sleeps sitting up in the library chair and Margaret tells people it's his back."

"Hallie."

"He stopped twice on the stairs to breathe. He has been taking extra water pills from her pillbox and nobody has told his doctor."

Jerome took a step closer.

"You're telling me he's sick."

"I'm telling you his heart is failing and it's going to stop. I think at the table, with a lot of people watching."

"When?"

I looked at the stove, because I had thought about how to say this the whole ride out.

In my last life his father had died on the dining room floor at the Sunday brunch, with Dirk standing over him with his phone in his hand and Margaret screaming at the maid to find a doctor.

Nobody had done chest compressions until it was much too late.

"Tomorrow," I said. "At brunch. I can't explain how I know. Rule two says I can say so and you won't push."

He stared at me for a long moment.

"That's cheating," he said.

"I know."

"You could have just lied."

"You said no lies."

Something at the corner of his mouth moved, once, and settled.

"My father hasn't let me through his front door in five years," Jerome said. "Margaret saw to that."

"Then I need you to get through it tomorrow."

"I can't walk uninvited into a brunch at a house I'm barred from."

"I know."

"So you're asking for something I can't do."

"I'm asking you to try."

His phone buzzed on the workbench.

He looked at the screen, and for the first time his face really changed.

"It's him," he said.

He put it on speaker.

The voice that came out was thin and winded, and I knew it as well as my own.

"Jerome. Margaret tells me my daughter-in-law has lost her mind and run off with the pills. I don't believe a word of it."

"Dad," Jerome said.

"I'd like to hear it from her myself. Tomorrow at noon, at the house. Bring the girl."

The line went dead.

Jerome looked at the phone for a while.

"Well," he said. "You may have your invitation."

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