Chapter 4: The Lien

I didn't have an answer for him.

I had a guess, and a guess wasn't something I handed to Jeff anymore.

"Go home, Jeff."

"The electric's getting shut off Monday."

"Then you should talk to your father before Monday."

"Can I at least see her?"

I thought about Evie asleep with her two stegosauruses.

"Saturday. Ten o'clock. Here. Bring nothing but yourself."

He nodded.

I watched him walk to the SUV I was still technically paying for.

He sat in it for a long time before he drove away.

On Saturday he came at ten, played dinosaurs on the living room rug for two hours, and didn't once mention money.

Evie made him be the herbivore.

He let her eat him half a dozen times.

When he left, she stood at the window and waved until his car turned the corner.

I went upstairs and sat on my twin bed for a while.

On Monday, a man walked into my branch and asked for me by name.

I saw him before he got to the desk.

Everybody did.

He had to duck a little under the hanging sign that said LOANS.

He was the biggest man I'd ever seen in a credit union lobby, broad as the door, in a canvas work jacket with a green logo on the chest.

BURGESS LANDSCAPE AND BUILD.

There was sawdust on his jeans.

He had a short dark blond beard and gray eyes that took in the whole branch in one pass.

"Julie Mattingly?"

"That's me."

"Lyle Burgess."

He didn't offer his hand.

He set a folded sheet of paper on my desk instead.

"Can I sit?"

"That's what the chair's for."

He sat. The chair creaked.

I unfolded the paper.

It was a credit report summary on a business letterhead.

Account applicant: Ron Mattingly.

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