She Discovered Too Late novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Where Cedric Went

She came down off the hill at midnight, when her hands were too numb to hold the car keys.

On the twenty-second morning after Colby's surgery, the doorbell rang at Alder Road.

My old bedroom was being emptied of the gym that day.

Two movers were carrying the last of the weights down the front staircase.

A treadmill waited in the hall with a tag on it.

Miriam stood on the landing with a coffee, watching them work.

I stood beside her.

"Ma'am," one of the movers said. "There's a man on the porch."

The housekeeper had already opened the door.

Colby stood on the mat with a duffel bag in his hand and a pill organizer in his coat pocket.

He had put on weight.

His skin was pink and the whites of his eyes were white, and he looked small in his good sweater.

"Miri," he said.

The housekeeper looked up the stairs.

Miriam came down slowly, one hand on the rail.

She stopped on the bottom step, so that she still looked down at him.

"Our uncle's wife wouldn't have me in the house," Colby said. "She said the stairs were bad for my stitches."

"That's true. They are."

"I thought, I'll go home." His voice caught on the word. "I just want my room back. I'll sleep on the floor."

"You can't. It's being cleaned out."

He looked past her.

A mover passed behind her carrying a set of dumbbells. The treadmill creaked on its dolly in the hall.

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