Love Is Blind, I'm Not novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Not Yet

I walked the whole way to Grandview in my bridesmaid shoes.

It took two hours and ruined both heels.

Aunt Bernie's old station wagon passed me at the second mile with its hazard lights on.

She did not stop, because she had read my face at the arch.

She drove ahead and waited outside the pink house.

By the time I reached the porch she had changed into her flowered apron.

A pot of chicken and dumplings was already on the stove.

"Sit," she said. "Shoes off."

I sat.

I put the envelope on the table, and she did not look at it.

She set a bowl in front of me, and the steam came up and touched my face, and I began, at last, to cry.

It was not graceful.

Clancy came and put his chin on my foot.

"There," Bernie said, patting my back with a wooden spoon. "That's the three years coming out."

"It's the whole five."

"Then let it. I've got dumplings for days."

At nine there was a knock.

Bernie went to the door, looked through the glass, and came back with her eyebrows high.

"He's brought a tomato plant," she said.

"What?"

"He's standing on my porch with a tomato plant in a pot. I think it's a peace offering."

I wiped my face with the dish towel.

"Let him in."

Elliot came into the kitchen in the dark suit with his tie gone and his sleeves pushed up.

He gripped the pot with both hands, tense.

"I asked at the garden center," he said. "They said it was hard to kill."

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