Chapter 11: The Lawn

Freja drove.

She took one look at my hands on the steering wheel of my own car and said, "Move over."

Her truck stayed in the lot.

She said she'd come back for it, and she didn't ask me anything for the whole forty minutes.

She drove with both hands and her jaw set, and she passed a plow on a double yellow line.

"Where would she take him?" she asked once.

"Home," I said. "Our house. She'd want his things."

"Why would she take him at all?"

"I don't know."

But I did know, in the pit of my stomach.

I had known since the stomach-bug tent, and I had refused to look at it.

We turned onto Maple Street at ten past noon.

Lindsay's gray SUV sat in our driveway with the back hatch open.

Three suitcases stood on the snow beside it.

The neighbors on both sides were outside, one shoveling and one pretending to look at a gutter.

My wife came out of the front door with an armload of Eli's clothes.

She stopped dead when she saw my car.

I got out.

My legs didn't feel like they belonged to me.

"Where is he?"

"Cal."

"Where's my son?"

"He's in the car. He's fine. He's watching a cartoon."

Through the SUV's back window I could see the glow of a tablet and the top of a head of brown curls.

I started up the driveway.

Lindsay dropped the clothes and put herself in front of me.

"Don't," she said. "Don't make this uglier in front of him."

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