Chapter 23: Just Me, In Jeans

I went out in Quinn's flannel shirt and bare feet.

Roz didn't look up.

She had taken off her shoes, and the hem of the ivory silk was gray with lawn.

"You have a nice garden," she said.

"Quinn does."

"The carpenter."

"He's inside. He'll stay there."

I sat on the step beside her, a foot of cold wood between us.

She smelled like grass and old perfume.

"I don't have anywhere to go," she said.

"You have a fiancé."

"He's at his parents'. He said I could call in a year."

"You have a lake house."

"Dad is in it. He's been shouting at the tent crew for hours, and then at the walls, and then at me."

"I came here because it was the only place I could think of where no one would shout."

"That's a low bar."

"It's all I've got."

She almost smiled.

It didn't look like any of her smiles from before.

It was small and crooked and tired.

"I wrote the script," she said. "For the hospital. I want you to know I know that."

"I know."

"It was the worst thing I did."

"It wasn't."

"What was?"

"The chat. The name of it."

She pressed her fingers to her eyes.

"I was twenty-seven. They made me feel like I had a place, and I turned it into a weapon."

"You turned it into a door that I wasn't allowed through."

"Yes."

"Do you want me to say it's okay?"

"No."

"Good, because it isn't."