Chapter 19: The New Lock

We landed in Columbus on Saturday afternoon in a thin cold rain.

Alec stood in the parking garage and turned up his collar.

"It's October," I said.

"It's fifteen degrees."

"Celsius?"

"I was born in this country," Alec said, "and I have forgotten what it is."

My mother laughed for the first time in two days.

She drove, because she refused to let either of us touch her Buick.

We came down her street at four with the wipers going.

There were three cars in her driveway.

One of them was Marissa's silver Corolla, with the dent over the rear wheel.

"She's not supposed to have a key," my mother said.

"Clayton gave you the two he took."

"I changed the locks Tuesday, dear, before I left. I left the new key with the church secretary in case of a pipe."

She was very calm, and I knew what that meant.

She parked the Buick across the end of her own driveway and got out with her purse.

I followed her up the path, with Alec behind me carrying her suitcase.

The front door was open.

Inside, the hall was full of women.

There were six of them from her church, in raincoats and clear plastic hats.

They were carrying boxes of winter coats through the house and stacking them in the dining room.

Marissa stood at the foot of the stairs in her white cardigan with a clipboard.

She had a key in her hand, shiny and new.

It was the one my mother had left with the church secretary.

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