Small Things You Promised novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Porch

I told Ty he could come to the porch.

Not inside. The porch.

He came Tuesday at seven, after supper, in a clean Waddell polo with the creases still in it from the package.

He'd shaved.

He'd brought flowers from the grocery store, yellow ones with the price sticker still on the plastic.

He stood at the bottom of the steps and looked at the porch light.

It was on.

"You fixed it," he said.

"I didn't."

He knew who had.

He set the flowers on the rail.

He sat down on the second step without being asked, the way he used to sit there with a beer.

I stayed in my chair.

Next door, the old man was on his own porch in his undershirt, shelling peas into a pot.

He didn't pretend not to listen.

"So," Ty said.

"So."

"I'm not drinking. I wanted you to know that."

"Okay."

He turned his cap around in his hands.

"It's been a bad month, Carlie."

I waited.

"I lost three guys. One of them was with us since Daddy."

He laughed, and it didn't come out right.

"Mama won't come to Sunday dinner. She says she'll come when I've earned the pot roast."

"That sounds like your mama."

He looked up at me with those blue eyes.

"I didn't sleep last night," he said. "I keep thinking about you on that floor."

"Which time?"

That landed. He looked at his boots.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I am. I'm sorry about the frosting, and the note, and all of it."

"I should've been there more. I know I let you down."

It was a good apology.

It was better than any I'd gotten in five years.

And every sentence in it had him at the center.

"Here's what I want to do," he said. "I want to put the mini-split in your kitchen. Tomorrow. I'll do it myself. No charge."

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