Chapter 8: Go to Bed, Chitwood

I drove the last four miles to Route 9 with both hands on the wheel and my right wrist throbbing.

Dutch was standing in the bay doors when I pulled in, and he must have heard the engine from a long way off.

He took one look at my arm and went back inside without a word.

When I came into the office, he had the first-aid kit open on the counter and a chair pulled out.

"Sit."

"It's just a bruise."

"Sit anyway."

I sat.

He knelt in front of the chair on one knee and took my hand in both of his.

His palms were rough and dry and warm, and he turned my wrist toward the light very gently.

Four marks had come up already, purple-red along the inside of my forearm.

His thumbs stopped moving.

"Who," he said.

"You know who."

"Say it."

"My husband."

He didn't answer.

He tore open an ice pack and wrapped it in a clean shop towel, and then he laid it across my arm.

The cold made me flinch, and he held it there with the flat of his hand.

I watched his face, because I had not seen it that close in the light.

It was very still, but the muscle in his jaw jumped, and a vein stood out at the side of his throat, beating fast.

I told myself he was just angry on my behalf, like any decent man.

"I'm pregnant," I said.

His eyes lifted.

"I figured," he said. "The doctor line, the eggs."

"It's Cade's. He found out today, in front of his father. Now he says the baby is a Chitwood and I can't take it anywhere."

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