Chapter 21: The Answer Is No

The pen did not move.

Her father stared at the paper, and his lips moved.

"Go on, darling," her mother said softly. "Just your name."

His eyes dropped to the red toolbox beside his chair.

He put down the pen and picked up the fuse again, and turned it over once in his big, scarred fingers.

Maeve saw the change begin at his mouth.

It tightened.

"Mom," she said, "he's not ready."

"Stay out of it."

"I'd like him to hear something first."

She held up her phone and pressed play.

Her father's voice filled the front room.

"It's Friday. The day before my wife's party. I'm sixty-six, and I'm in my right mind."

The room went quiet.

"I never signed a paper about my house. Not in the spring, not ever. If a signature says otherwise, somebody else wrote it."

Her mother half rose.

"Turn that off. He's confused. He's said anything you wanted him to say."

Maeve let it run one more second, and then she stopped it herself.

In the armchair, her father lifted his head.

His eyes were clear.

It was the clearness of nine in the morning.

It had come in the evening, out of a fuse and his own voice.

"That's me," he said.

"Yes, Dad."

"I sound well."

"You do."

He looked at the paper on his knee.

Then he looked at the woman kneeling in front of him with the black pen.

"I don't want to sign this."

"Darling..."

"Take it away."

His voice was low and perfectly steady.

"I was asked once in the spring, and I said no. I'm saying no again."

A cousin by the piano set down her plate.

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