A Love Lost to the Years novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Terms

He wrote the terms on Sunday morning, on the back of a drafting sheet, at the bench in the shop.

He used a carpenter's pencil and a steel straightedge, because he did not know another way to write a thing that mattered.

Annabel sat on a stool across the bench with her coat on and her hands folded.

She had asked to be there while he did it.

He had said yes, as long as she kept quiet.

She had kept quiet the whole time, which was a record.

"Done," Kenneth said, and turned the sheet around.

She read it with her lips pressed together.

Then she read it again, slower.

The first term said: Anything I ask, you answer the same day.

It went on: No changing the subject. No leaving to fix something in the next room.

"Yes," she said.

The second said: Nothing in the house or the office stays turned to the wall.

"Yes."

The third said: The building on this street goes in both our names, filed with the county by Friday.

It went on: I pay the dollar every January in cash.

She looked up.

"You'll take the deed?"

"I'll take it because you didn't give it to me to make up for something," Kenneth said.

"You gave it to me because you wanted me to have a roof. That's a different thing. I get it now."

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