Chapter 10: Shannon's Door

Ian offered to come with me, and I said no.

"If Neil's there, I want to see his face," I said.

"If you're standing next to me, I won't see anything but your temper."

"I don't have a temper."

"You will."

He looked at me for a moment, and then at Cody asleep on my shoulder.

"Text me when you're out," he said.

Shannon's apartment was on the third floor of a brick building in Upper Darby.

The stairwell smelled of someone's dinner.

I carried Cody up the stairs, and his rabbit hung from his fist.

I stopped outside her door and listened.

A man's voice said something low.

Then my sister laughed, the real laugh, the one I hadn't heard directed at me in years.

I knocked.

The laughing stopped at once.

Footsteps crossed the floor. A door shut somewhere inside.

A long moment later, the lock turned.

Shannon opened the door with her hair wet and her face bare.

She was wearing a gray work shirt, too big for her, with the sleeves rolled up.

I had ironed that shirt. I had replaced its second button last winter.

"Mags!" Her voice came out too high. "What are you doing here? I thought you had him all day."

"He wanted to come home," I said. "He said he missed his toothbrush."

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