Five Years Gone, She Walked Back In, So I Walked Out novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Check

My father's mouth moved, and nothing came out.

Behind him, the band had gone silent. A hundred people stood in the sailcloth light, holding their drinks, with their faces turned toward us.

"Dad," I said. "Did you pay her?"

"Stevie."

"Yes or no."

He closed his eyes.

"Yes," he said.

A low sound went around the room.

I stood there and waited to feel something enormous.

What I felt was cold.

"How much?"

"Ninety thousand."

"Why?"

"Because you were nineteen," my father said. His eyes opened, and they were wet. "You came home from that summer job at the yard and you didn't eat for a month. I'd find you in the garage at three in the morning, drawing his boats."

"I never told you that."

"You didn't have to. I'm your father."

"I was nineteen," I said. "He was twenty-three, and he never looked at me, and I never said a word to him."

"I know."

"I would have gotten over it."

"You didn't. You were twenty-three and you still weren't over it." His voice cracked. "You'd drive past the yard. You'd stand at the back of the church every Easter to look at him. I watched you shrink. And then I heard that Lorna's brother had debts and she was desperate, and I thought, there's one door, and a man can open it."

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