Chapter 21: Cold Porch

I drove to the Point with the heater on high and my father's draft receipt still in my coat.

The road ran along the harbor between bare oaks, and the sun was already low behind the water.

The house stood at the end of it, long and white, with every shutter closed for the season.

My mother's rosebushes lined the walk in rows of thorny canes wrapped in burlap.

Lawrence was sitting on the top step of the front porch in his shirtsleeves.

His elbows were on his knees, and his hands hung between them, red from the wind.

He did not stand up when my car stopped.

He looked up, and for a moment his face was open in a way I had never seen it.

Then he put it away, piece by piece.

"The caretaker called you," he said.

"He said you didn't have a coat."

"I left it in the car, at the courthouse."

"I walked here from there."

"You've been here since eleven."

"I wanted to see it."

"Why?"

"To see what the paper was for."

I climbed the steps and stopped one stair below him, so that our eyes were level.

His lips had gone faintly blue.

"You sat in the cold for four hours," I said, "for a house you gave away."

"I didn't give it away. I gave it back."

"It was never yours."

"No," Lawrence said. "That's what I was thinking about."

I looked out at the gray water, and then at the dead roses.

"I saw your car at the courthouse," I said. "You never got out."

"It wasn't mine to watch."

"You wanted to."

"Every day for twenty years."

"But you didn't come."

"You told me not to stand at your gate," he said. "I thought the order covered steps."

I almost laughed, and I hated that I almost did.

"Lawrence."

"Yes."

"I'm still angry."

"I know."

"I don't know how long I'll be angry. Maybe all winter. Maybe until I'm forty."

"I'll wait."

"Don't. That's the problem. You wait too well. You waited twenty years for her, and look what it cost."

He said nothing.

"I'm not forgiving you tonight," I said. "I want that to be perfectly clear."

"It's clear."

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