Chapter 7: Devin's POV: The Workbench

Devin's POV

I woke at five with her hair across my arm and the sky going grey in the window.

Katie was asleep on her side, one hand under her cheek, breathing slow.

I lay still and looked at the ceiling and made a list of my sins.

I was thirty-nine.

I taught sixteen-year-olds about the Treaty of Versailles for a living.

I had just spent the night with my wife's daughter.

Then I made a second list, shorter, and it was the one that kept me awake.

On April 28 I had made a promise to Renee at this kitchen table.

I had kept it for eleven weeks, and I had not once broken it.

I had to tell Katie.

I had to say it before Thursday, before anyone landed on that driveway, and before she heard it from somebody who enjoyed telling it.

I slid my arm out from under her head and went to the kitchen to make coffee.

I got as far as measuring the grounds.

Then I heard the stairs, and she came in wearing my shirt again and her bare feet, with her hair a mess.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi."

"You left."

"I was going to bring you a cup."

"You were going to run away," she said, but she was smiling.

She walked up to me and put her arms around my waist and her cheek against my chest.

I put my chin on top of her head.

"Katie. There's something I need to tell you."

"Is it about last night?"

"No. Partly. It's about..."

"Because if it's the age thing, or my mother, or that you're awful for doing it, I know." She looked up. "I was there. I'm not a child, Devin."

"I know you're not."

"Then what is it?"

I opened my mouth.

It was all there.

The kitchen table. The envelope.

The day she'd stood in the doorway with her suitcase and her car keys and said, "Don't tell Katie yet. Let her graduate. Let her have her summer."

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