A Love Lost to the Years novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Ore Dock Road

The lot at 14 Ore Dock Road was an acre of gravel behind a chain, with the lake at the far end of it.

Annabel had stood on it every Sunday morning for seven years.

She had never once brought anyone.

On Thursday, an hour before dark, she unlocked the chain with a key from her house ring.

She held it open for her husband.

Kenneth walked through.

He stood in the middle of the gravel with his hands in his jacket.

He turned slowly, looking at the footprint of the place.

He did not say anything.

She had expected him to.

She had rehearsed what she would answer.

"You came here every Sunday," he said finally.

"Yes."

"You told me you were at the club."

"I was lying." She almost smiled. "It was the last lie."

"I followed your car once, in the third year, and sat outside the chain thinking you were meeting him," he said.

"I know. I saw your truck in the mirror."

"You never said."

"I was a coward."

"What did you do here?"

"Nothing. I stood on the loading dock slab, there, with a coffee."

"I looked at where the east wall used to be."

She pointed.

The old concrete slab was still there, long and cracked and gone green at the edges.

"Walter used to stand on it on Sundays too," she said. "With his thermos."

"He said a working mill is the only building that sounds like a person breathing."

Kenneth looked at the slab.

He studied it as he studied a board before he cut it, and she felt something go over her skin.

"Show me," he said. "What would you put here?"

She took a breath.

It was the thing she had never told anyone, because saying it made it a promise.

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