Chapter 13: Porch Only

Sawyer was sitting on the bottom porch step when I came back with Poppy at eight the next morning.

His truck was parked where it had been the night before, and there was frost on the hood.

He had not gone to the yard office. He had not gone anywhere.

Lorna had stood at my car window until I told her to send me the bank slips when she found them, and not before I had slept.

She had said she would. My phone had stayed dark all night.

Poppy let go of my hand and ran at him with her rabbit swinging.

"Daddy! It's not Sunday!"

"It's a little bit Sunday," he said, and he caught her and held on a beat longer than she liked.

Over her curls his eyes found mine, red at the rims.

"I stayed off the porch," he said. "I stayed on the step."

"I can see that."

"I didn't come in."

"You slept in a truck."

"I didn't sleep."

I had been rehearsing for twelve hours what I would say to him, and I had it in order.

I opened my mouth and the first thing out of it was a different sentence.

"Poppy, go find the kite string in the cupboard."

She went. The screen door banged.

I came down one step, so that my eyes were level with his.

"Porch only, Rutledge," I said.

He took it without moving a muscle.

"You made that rule when you thought I was a man who let go of you for no reason. I said I'd keep it. I'll keep it."

"You broke it first."

"You kissed me first."

"On the floor of this cabin. After you told me you couldn't tell me why you were scared."

"Yes."

"And then you left before I woke up, and you paid a man in the lane, and I found out at a party."

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