Chapter 21: The Porch

When we turned onto Bev's street, half of Cicero was already on its front steps.

Tucker's car sat crooked at the curb with one wheel up on the grass.

Bev stood at the top of her own porch stairs in her blue cardigan, with the screen door held open behind her and her chin up.

Tucker stood three steps below her, in the suit he had worn to the gala, creased now, with a brown envelope in his hand.

He looked as though he hadn't slept since Saturday.

"I am a seventy-four-year-old woman," Bev was saying, loud enough for the neighbors, "and I have never in my life struck a man. Do not tempt me."

"Mrs. Merrick, I only want to talk to her."

"You want to talk to her on my steps, in front of my street, with your shirt buttoned wrong. In this house we call that a siege."

The man across the street laughed into his coffee.

I got out of the car.

Tucker saw me, and his whole body turned.

"Addie."

"Stay where you are."

"I need you to look at this." He held the envelope out, and his hand shook. "Please. Ten minutes, that's all."

Heath came around the car behind me, and I put a hand back without looking.

He stopped.

"It's my fight," I said.

"I know," he said quietly. "I'm only carrying the boxes."

I walked up the path and stopped at the foot of the steps.

Bev reached down and touched my shoulder once, then folded her hands.