The Name on the Broadcast novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Two Mothers

Frances lowered the little square of paper into her lap.

Nobody on the bench said anything.

The vending machine hummed.

A trooper walked past with a coffee and looked at the three of us and kept walking.

"The quiet one with the peppermints," I said.

My voice sounded like somebody else's.

"You know her," Frances said.

"She held the door tonight."

I looked down at my hands.

"She said go. It was the only word I ever heard her say."

Ben's shoulder was still against mine.

He didn't move it.

"I walked past her every Sunday," I said. "For eighteen years. I said thank you for the candy."

"You were a child."

"I'm not a child now."

Frances folded the third sheet back along its old creases, very carefully, and put it in the envelope with the others.

She didn't give it back to me.

She held it against her chest.

"Nobody makes any decisions at one in the morning in a police station," she said. "That's a rule. I just made it."

At six the detective let us go.

The two women had been taken to a hospital an hour south, where their families were already driving to meet them.

The girl from next door hugged me in the parking lot.

She smelled like the church kitchen's dish soap.

"I'll call you," she said. "When I'm home. I'll call you every day."

"You don't have to."

"I'm going to anyway."

Frances drove me. Ben followed in his hatchback, close enough that I could see his glasses in her mirror the whole two hours.

Her house was yellow, on a street of yellow and white houses, with a maple dropping red leaves on the lawn.

A big gray dog threw himself at the door when we came in.

"Ignore him," Frances said. "He's an idiot. Don't let him have your toast."

"He's huge."

"Annie picked out his grandmother from a cardboard box. They've been getting bigger and dumber ever since."

She put eggs on. She put bacon on.

She put a plate in front of Ben and another one in front of me and stood over us with the spatula.

"Eat."

"Mrs. Wooler, I should get back," Ben said. "I've got a board shift at noon."

"You've got a couch at noon. You drove all night. You'll sleep or I'll call your mother."

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