Chapter 12: The Second Key

I got dressed on the cabin floor with my back to him.

My hands would not do the buttons.

"Say it again," I said.

"I drove the envelopes to her mother's house on the first of every month. Six years. Your father gave them to me sealed."

"You knew whose daughter she was."

"I figured it out the second year."

"And you stood in my kitchen when I was planning my wedding."

"Yes."

"You carried that envelope," I said, "while I was planning my wedding with her sister's boyfriend."

"Yes."

"Why?"

He sat against the wall with his shirt open and his hands hanging between his knees.

"It wasn't my secret," he said. "He's my boss. I thought if I broke it, I'd lose the only job I'd ever had, and you'd lose your father."

"That's a coward's answer."

"It's the true one."

I yanked my boots on.

"I would have told you anything you asked," he said. "I just never knew which questions to answer first."

"You should have answered all of them."

"I know."

I stood up.

I was shaking, and I did not want him to see it.

"I need you to stop being sorry at me," I said. "I can't hold it."

"Okay."

"I have to think."

"Take your time."

"I didn't say I was coming back."

"I know that too."

He got up slowly.

He went to the nail by the door and took a key off it.

It was a small brass key on a loop of baling twine.

He held it out.

"That's the spare to this cabin," he said. "The other one's mine. If you want to come in, you can. If you want to lock me out, it's yours to lock."

I looked at the key.

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