Chapter 21: The Complaint

On Monday morning Dorothea knocked on the shop door herself.

She was alone, in her good wool coat, with her purse over her arm and her hair set.

I opened it.

For a moment I did not know her, because she wasn't smiling.

"Joanna," she said. "I'd like to speak to my son."

"Which one?"

"Don't be clever."

Emmett came up behind me from the workbench with sawdust on his forearms.

He did not step in front of me, and I was grateful for that.

Dorothea looked past us into the kitchen, at the pinned drawing and the small sloop sitting on the table.

"So this is what it looks like," she said. "A boat shop. A tub of water. Power saws, glue, a child sleeping above a gas heater."

"He sleeps in a bed that has a door that locks," Emmett said.

"I'm here to make an offer."

"I'm listening."

"The boy comes home today. Tomorrow I withdraw what I've filed with the county, and on Christmas Eve we sit down, all of us, like a family."

I stared at her.

"What did you file?"

"A concern." Her mouth thinned.

"That a ten-year-old is living in an unlicensed shop with a man who lied to his family for eleven years."

"And?"

"And a married woman who is sleeping with him."

"I'm divorcing Bryce."

"You are not divorced."

"You're asking us to pay for something you did."

"I'm asking you to be reasonable."

Emmett shifted his weight.

"The county will come," he said. "They'll look at the heater. They'll look at the bed. They'll look at Milo."

"They will look at you."

"Good," he said. "I'd like them to."

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