Chapter 5: The Deposit

Barton left with a slap on the counter and a "Happy cooking, everybody," and the Pinecrest man left behind him without a word.

The neighbors stood in the kitchen holding their spoons.

"Okay," Mabry said, very loud. "Okay, who wants a ride home? Because I do, and I'm driving."

She herded them out the back door, eleven coats and a casserole dish.

In the doorway she gave me a look that said I will text you forty times.

Then the door swung shut, and the kitchen was empty except for me, a pot of cabbage and Abel Cushman.

Ansel had gone back upstairs on his walker, tapping each step.

"Say it," Abel said.

"The deposit."

"I told you I was selling."

"You told me you were selling a diner."

I put the spoon down so I wouldn't throw it.

"You didn't tell me you'd taken ten thousand dollars from the people paying my uncle to steal my grandmother's dinner."

"I didn't know about your uncle."

"You said that already."

"Because it's true."

His voice rose, and he glanced at the ceiling and brought it back down.

"I signed the week after Grandpa fell. Your uncle was a name on a letterhead."

"You let me stand in your kitchen and cook for the other side."

"You asked for my kitchen!"

"You said no! Then you said yes! Then you peeled twenty pounds of apples to watch me do it!"

"I was bored!"

"You hovered like a hawk!"

"I wanted to watch you cook!" he shouted, and then stopped, hearing it.

The kitchen rang.

The hood fan hummed.

"Let me start over," Abel said, quieter.

"My grandfather broke his hip on the thirteenth of November. The rehab bill was nine thousand four hundred for two weeks."

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