Chapter 19: Aloe

Floyd's POV

I crossed the street with a split knuckle and sunburned shoulders.

I walked up to the driver's window of Doc's sedan.

He rolled it down.

He had shaved badly. There was a nick on his jaw with a scrap of paper stuck to it.

"I wasn't going to knock," he said.

"You've been watching her window."

"I was making up my mind."

"About what?"

He didn't answer. He took a white envelope off the seat and held it out through the window.

"It's for the boy," Doc said. "For when he's older. It says what I did, and it says that you didn't know."

"I'm not carrying it in."

"Floyd."

"Mail it to her. She'll open it if she wants to." I kept my hands at my sides. "She opens her own mail now."

He put the envelope back down on the seat.

His right thumb went up to his ear, and I made myself watch it do it.

"Sunday," he said. "The church hall after service. I'm going to stand up and tell them what I did. The lab, the swabs."

"And why?"

"They can ask me why."

I breathed out through my nose.

"Do it in the hall," I said. "Not at her window."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"I know you are. It doesn't help."

A porch light came on behind me.

Emme stood at the top of her steps in the yellow glow with Eli on her shoulder, and she did not call across the street. She just looked.

Doc looked at the baby.

His hand dropped from his ear, and his whole face opened, and then he made it close again.

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