Chapter 12: The List

Thea's POV

On the fourth day, the doctor cleared me to climb stairs, and I carried myself back to Marlborough Street with a list.

The elevator had been fixed.

I climbed anyway, one flight at a time, because I wanted to be tired by the time he came.

Harrison arrived at six, exactly when I had told him to.

He stood in the doorway with his hands in his coat pockets and did not step over the threshold.

"You wrote it down," he said.

"I did."

I handed him the page.

It had three lines, in my neat pharmacist's handwriting, with a margin on either side.

He read it standing in the hall.

One. Celia and Caleb are out of the hotel and into a place of their own by Friday. Not Chestnut Street, and not one night under my roof.

Two. You tell the Foundation board about your son yourself, in your own words, in the room, with no one managing it.

Three. No more lies, big or small. If I ask, you answer, even when the answer is ugly.

"That's all?" he said.

"For any place in this baby's life, yes."

He read it again.

"Friday is three days away," he said.

"Celia can find an apartment with a working heater."

"I'll do it today."

"And the board?"

"They meet on the fifteenth. I'll stand up and tell them." He lifted his eyes from the page. "I'll say you did nothing wrong."

"I don't need you to say that."

"I need to say it."

I did not answer.

He looked down at the page again, and I watched his throat move.

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