I Logged In As The CEO's Mother And Crushed His Favorite Girl novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Boy at the Window

I didn't answer him on the courthouse curb.

I said, "Let me see them first."

He looked at me like I'd asked for his bank password.

Then he nodded once and shut the car door.

He let me into the greenhouse on a Sunday at the end of October.

It smelled like turpentine and wet leaves.

He'd built crates along one wall, raw pine with his name stenciled on the side. LISBON. FRAGILE. THIS SIDE UP.

Eleven canvases leaned against the glass with sheets over them.

He pulled the sheets off one at a time without saying anything.

They were all the same window.

A tall window in a dark house. The glass black with night.

And a boy.

In the first one he was maybe five, in striped pajamas, his forehead against the glass.

In the next one he was older. Seven. Kneeling on a chair to see over the sill.

Then nine, with a book open in his lap that he wasn't reading.

Then twelve.

Outside the window, in every painting, there was a long gravel drive.

And at the end of the drive, in some of them, two small lights.

Headlights. Too far away to tell if they were turning in.

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