Chapter 8: The Woman They Never Introduced

Rhoda Haskell's frame shop on Main Street smells of pine, glue and burnt coffee.

I have loved it since I was six.

On Saturday I came in at ten with the bell jangling over my head.

Rhoda was cutting a mat at her long table with her reading glasses pushed up in her white hair.

"There she is," she said, without looking up. "The one who finally quit."

"How did you know?"

"Your father called me three times on Monday to say you'd lost your mind."

"I've been waiting almost two weeks for you to show up."

She set down the blade and held out her arms.

I walked into them.

She was short and sturdy and smelled of cedar, and I hadn't cried in front of anyone since the resignation.

"Sit," she said, when I was done. "There's a stool by the window and a clean mug. Tell me."

I told her about the car, the room, the table, the slides and the stairwell.

I told her what Janie said on the landing.

Rhoda stopped stirring her coffee.

"What did she say, exactly?"

"Ask him why he's so afraid of me."

Rhoda set the spoon down.

She went to the back of the shop.

I heard a drawer open and close, and she came back with a flat gray box.

"I'm sixty-eight," she said. "I started this firm with your father in a basement with one drafting table."

"I've kept my mouth shut for twenty-seven years about one thing. I hoped to keep it shut until I died."

"Rhoda."

"I'm telling you because you quit, and nobody has told you the truth in your own house."

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