When He Finally Found Her, She Was Already Married novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: One Conversation

At dawn in the bakery Declan says she cashed the check that same week, and she says his signature was on the papers. He signed nothing, and he has rented a room for a month.

I open Pell's Bakery at half past four, and the first thing I do is turn on the ovens.

That morning I turned them on and stood in front of them with my hands out.

I was cold in a way the heat didn't reach.

I had not slept.

I'd lain in bed with the steel ring in my fist.

Through the wall I could hear Davis's radio.

At a quarter to five, someone knocked on the glass of the front door.

Dot got there first.

She is sixty-eight, she owns the building, and she has opinions about everyone who has ever stood on our sidewalk.

She looked through the glass at the long wet coat and then at me.

"That him?"

"That's him."

"Hm," said Dot.

She unlocked the door and let him in.

Then she poured him a cup of coffee without asking and put it on the nearest table, and went into the back and banged pans around so loudly we both knew she was listening.

Declan did not sit down.

He stood in the middle of my bakery with the cup in his hand.

He looked at the racks, the flour sacks, and the chalkboard where Posy had drawn a pie with a face.

"You've got a good place," he said.

"You have one conversation," I said. "Then you go back to Boston."

"I'll take it."

"Ask what you came to ask."

He put the cup down.

"You cashed the check from my mother," he said. "The same week. I heard the date from my mother's own mouth, and I've heard it in my head every night since."

My whole body went hot.

"Her check?"

"I never saw the number. My mother said you took the money and left without a word."

"I didn't need to leave a note," I said. "You'd done the talking already, you and the lawyers."

"What lawyers?"

"The ones who mailed me the annulment petition."

He didn't say anything.

I kept going, because once I'd started I couldn't stop.

"It came less than two weeks after the wedding. Your family's lawyers, a cover letter, the petition, and a check for two hundred thousand dollars. Your signature was on the last page."

"I signed nothing."

"I know what your signature looks like."

"Then you know I didn't sign it." His voice stayed level, which only made me angrier. "Steph, a week after the wedding I was in an intensive care unit in Lisbon. I'd gone to close the shipping deal and my appendix burst on the plane."

"Convenient."

"It was four days of fever and a month in a bed. I came home and my mother told me you'd gone."

"And you believed her."

"I believed the bank record she showed me. Your name on the back of a cashier's check." He rubbed his face. "Yes. For about two months I believed her. Then I started writing."

I thought of the box in my closet, and the envelope at the bottom of it, and the page with his name in black ink.

I didn't say that I had read that name until I knew every loop of it.

"The check came from your lawyers," I said.

"Did you look at the account?"

"It was a cashier's check."

"Cashier's checks still say where the money came from. Look at the remitter line."

I hadn't looked.

I had been standing in a hospital corridor in Portland.

My father was in a bed down the hall, and the billing office wanted a deposit by Friday.

I'd looked at the number.

"I needed the money for my dad," I said. "He had a bad heart. They wouldn't schedule the surgery without it."

Declan closed his eyes.

"I didn't know that."

"Of course you didn't. You never asked."

"I was in Lisbon, with a hole in my stomach."

"You've got an answer for everything."

"I have a hospital bill," he said. "I'll show you. It's in my bag at the room I rented."

"Don't bring me anything."

"Steph."

"I said don't."

The oven timer went off, and I used it as an excuse to turn my back.

I pulled out the first tray of rolls and set them down too hard.

When I turned around, he was standing by the door with his hand on the knob.

"One more thing, and then I'll go," he said. "I've rented a room over the bait shop on Water Street. For a month."

"You said one conversation."

"I said I'd go back to Boston. I didn't say when."

I opened my mouth to tell him exactly what I thought of that.

The bell over the door rang.

Davis came in with Posy on his shoulders and a newspaper under his arm, and she was already shouting.

"Mama Steph, we came for pancakes! Mama Steph, who is that?"

Declan looked up at her.

Posy looked back at him with her chin tipped up.

"I like your coat," she said. "It's very wet."

"It is," said Declan. "I'm Declan Hargrove."

Davis swung her down and held out his hand.

I watched the two men shake.

"Davis Ferris," Davis said. "I hear you came a long way. Stay for supper tonight, Mr. Hargrove."

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