15 Days Before I Left Him novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Roscoe's Last Ask

On Monday evening Roscoe knocked on the apartment door with nothing in his hands.

I knew his knock.

Raylan, at the stove, put down the spoon and looked at me.

"I'll go out," he said.

"Stay in the kitchen. Door open."

I opened the front door and did not step back to let him in.

Roscoe stood on the landing in his work jacket, unshaven.

He had clearly practiced a speech in the car and lost it on the stairs.

"Five minutes," he said. "I won't touch you. I won't ask for anything you can't give."

"Then why are you here?"

"One last thing."

I stepped out onto the landing and pulled the door nearly shut behind me.

The stairwell light hummed.

"The board met this morning," Roscoe said. "They voted four to one."

He swallowed.

"My mother is off the lumberyard board and off the Rescue Day committee. She's gone to stay with her sister in Traverse City."

"I'm sorry."

"Are you?"

"I'm sorry it happened. I'm not sorry she's gone."

He nodded at the floor.

"I put in my resignation too. They won't take it yet. They said I run the yard until spring, and then they'll see."

He breathed out.

"I wanted you to hear it from me."

"Thank you."

"That's not the thing I came for."

He reached into his jacket and took out a long envelope.

I did not take it.

"It's the twenty-four thousand," he said. "I took out a loan to put it back. It's yours."

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