Chapter 23: Tuesdays

On Sunday morning Roxy sat in our kitchen with a coffee in each hand, reading her phone aloud.

"Three women called the district attorney's office before breakfast," she said.

"Three?" I said.

"One of them is the third name in the notebook. She says she'll talk to anybody who'll listen."

"And Russell?" I said.

"Spent the night in a room with a metal table. The officers called it a good Saturday."

She drank.

"Also, I'm told your mother's lawyer cried."

Chet's mother sat at the end of the table in her green coat, which she still had not taken off.

She held a cup in both hands and counted the cabinets with her eyes.

"This is a lot of cabinets," she said.

"You get used to them," I said.

"I won't." She looked at me. "Chet tells me you cut your hand in a kitchen, and he bandaged it so badly you had to redo it."

"He did."

"He's like that. He doesn't flinch at the big things, and he loses his mind over a gauze pad."

She set down her cup.

"Come here."

I went.

She took my face in both her small hands and studied it for a moment.

"Good," she said. "I thought so."

That was all.

It was the best thing anyone had said to me in a month.

Through the kitchen door I saw my mother cross the hall.

She wore a cardigan I did not know she owned, and she carried a tray.

I left the kitchen.

I went the long way, up the back stairs, and stopped at the top where the study door stood ajar.

Through it I could see the balcony.

My father sat in his chair by the rail with a folded blanket over his knees.

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