Chapter 8: Something You Don't Say

"Gran knew," I said, in the cold on the porch.

"She sat me down on that top stair the second week," Amory said.

"She told me what the street was, and who lives where, and what each of them would lose."

"And?"

"And I'll tell you the rest when the house is yours."

"That's the same sentence you gave me Monday."

"It's the only one I have."

I wanted to hit him with the survey stakes.

Instead I went inside, found a legal pad and a pen, and sat at Gran's table.

He came in after me and stood in the doorway.

"I'm going to test you," I said.

"Fine."

"Sit."

He sat.

I wrote one page in my plainest paralegal print, and I called it a Household Agreement.

It had a title, a date, six clauses about chores and quiet hours, and a seventh clause I buried between the dishwasher and the recycling.

Clause seven said that the husband agreed to wash every dish in the house, for life, without complaint.

I turned the page around and slid the pen across.

"Sign here," I said.

He picked up the pen.

I was watching his eyes, and they never moved.

They stayed on my face.

He signed his name in a quick, square hand at the bottom, and he pushed the paper back.

"You didn't read it," I said.

"You wrote it."

"I wrote the part about the dishes."

"I'll do the dishes."

"Amory." I held the page up.

"Clause seven. For life, without complaint."

"I like dishes."

"You signed a lifetime obligation because I looked at you."

He had the grace to flush.

"I trust you."

"Don't," I said, sharper than I meant to.

"Don't trust anyone with a pen in their hand. Not me, not your lawyer, not the nice man who brings pastries."

Something went across his face that I couldn't read.

It looked like the memory of a bad dream.

"I know," he said.

"You know?"

"I'm working on it."

Outside, the first drops of the rain began to tick on the porch roof.

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