15 Days Before I Left Him novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: The Seventeenth

On the seventeenth of October, a year after I left the lodge, Roscoe knocked on our door at eight in the morning.

He had a baby carrier in one hand and a diaper bag over his shoulder.

Faye's daughter was five months old and awake, and she was chewing on a fist.

"Sorry," Roscoe said. "She woke up at four, and I thought you'd want her before the day got started."

"Come in."

"I can't stay." He held out a cream envelope. "Faye wrote this in July."

His voice caught.

"She told me to bring it today, and not a minute earlier."

I took it.

My name was on the front in Faye's careful handwriting.

She had died in August, three months after the baby came, and I had spoken at the service with the medal in my coat pocket.

Roscoe looked tired.

He also looked steadier than he had in a year, with a burp cloth on his shoulder and a wet spot of baby drool on his sleeve.

He had moved into the Aspen Road house, and he ran the yard from seven to four and came home to her.

He had not asked me for anything in eleven months.

"Thanks for coming," I said.

"Thanks for saying yes to her."

He kissed the top of the baby's head and handed me the carrier.

Then he went down the stairs, and I watched him go with nothing but warmth.

Raylan came out of the kitchen with a spatula in his hand.

"Was that the mailman?"

"That was Roscoe, and the baby."

He put the spatula down at once and took the carrier from me.

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