My Stepfather Sold Me at the Card Table, and the Man Who Won Me Never Looked My Way novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Hill Turns

We drove down the Pintler road at nine, behind the plow, with the shoebox on my knees.

Cormick drove with both hands on the wheel and the heater on.

I noticed that first, and I noticed it again at every bend.

"Tuesday," I said. "That's three days."

"Bram moved it because he knows we went up the mountain."

"How?"

"The plow driver drinks at the club," Cormick said. "He's a good man, and he talks."

He did not say anything else for two switchbacks.

I looked at the profile I had spent three weeks trying not to look at.

"You're going to take me to the Union Hall," I said. "Today."

"Aye."

"Walking in with me."

"Walking beside you." His eyes stayed on the road. "Not in front of you, and not behind. If you say not at all, I'll sit in the truck."

I thought about the rule I had made at the sink, that nothing touched in front of the hill.

It had been a good rule for the bond.

It was a bad one now.

"Beside," I said.

The Union Hall stood at the bottom of Granite Street, a long brick building with a stone step and a green door.

It had hosted every wedding and wake on the hill for a hundred years.

The steps were already full.

I counted forty people on them, and more in the street, and a line of cars down both sides.

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