Chapter 12: The Crossing Guard

I walked down the hill at eleven the next morning in my green coat from the thrift store.

Anne opened the front door herself before I could ring.

She hugged me on the step.

She'd never done that.

"You look tired," she said into my hair.

"So do you."

"I'm fifty. I'm allowed."

She let me go and looked at me hard.

"Thatcher told me you stood in the street."

"He talks too much."

"He's never talked enough in his life. I'm enjoying it."

She took my coat and hung it in the hall closet next to her own.

Thatcher was in the front room, standing by the fireplace with his hands in his pockets.

He didn't come near me.

His father had said not in this house, and he was keeping his word in the house.

But his eyes went over me from head to foot.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi."

Anne looked between us and sighed through her nose.

"Oh, for heaven's sake."

Upstairs, I found the guest room door half open.

Dena was folding Anne's old sweater on the bed.

She'd packed everything else into a black garbage bag. The same kind we'd carried our clothes in out of the orphanage.

Her bruise had gone yellow at the edges.

"Who was in the car?" I said quietly.

She didn't look up.

"Leave it."

"You said, you don't know what he..."

"I said leave it, Maisie."

"Dena, if somebody..."

She put the sweater down.

She looked at me then, and her eyes were flat and old.

"He'll be here in ten minutes," she said. "Don't make it worse for me. Please. Just this once, don't."

She'd never said please to me in either life.

I went back downstairs.

At noon exactly, the rusted sedan with the one headlight pulled up the drive.

Thatcher had sent the keys back by courier the week after the gala.

Lyle Purdy got out of the driver's seat.

He was wearing a pressed flannel shirt buttoned to the collar and khakis with a crease in them.

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