The World Never Ended novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Watch

My mother testified on Tuesday morning, in a room with a long table and a recording machine.

I was not allowed inside.

I sat in the hall with my son on my knee and the baby in her carrier.

Shane sat opposite, reading nothing.

It took three hours.

When the door opened, my mother came out with her handkerchief balled in her fist.

She had left the cashmere coat at home, and she looked smaller without it.

"I told them everything," she said. "The stairs. The contract. The Christmas dinners."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me, Cora."

She sat down heavily and took my son's small hand.

"They asked me whether your father would testify," she said. "I said I would ask."

"And?"

"He says he won't be spoken to by a boy with a clipboard."

I put my son in my mother's lap.

"Stay with the baby," I said. "I'll ask him myself."

Shane stood up without being told.

"I'll drive."

The house was quiet when we got there.

The staircase curved up out of the hall, and the black dome still hung above it.

I did not look at it for long.

My father's study was at the back, past the dining room, and the door stood open.

He sat at the big desk with the lamp on and the curtains drawn, in his shirtsleeves.

On the blotter in front of him lay his steel wristwatch, face up, and he was winding it.

He turned the crown slowly, with a thumb and a finger, as he had done every morning of my life.

"Dad."

He did not look up.

"Your mother has gone to talk to the district attorney," he said. "I told her it was a mistake."

"She told the truth."

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