Chapter 6: Fifteen

I put my youngest stepdaughter in the room at the top of the stairs.

It was the only bedroom whose window still had glass in it.

She sat on the mattress with her coat on and didn't say a word until I brought her soup.

"Does Dad know you came?" I asked.

"I left a note." She stared into the bowl. "I wrote that I was at a friend's."

"Kiddo."

"He wouldn't have let me come."

"Then I'm going to call him tonight."

"Please don't make me go back there."

I sat on the edge of the bed.

"What happened?"

She told me in pieces.

Dina had moved into the master bedroom the first week.

Then she had boxed up my stepdaughter's things and moved them to the sewing room.

Dina wanted the girl's bedroom for a dressing room.

"She goes through everything," the girl said.

"She was in Dad's study all night on Tuesday with a folder. When I came in she put it in her purse and said it was only bills."

"What kind of bills?"

"I don't know. She said she's making Dad's life simpler."

She looked up.

"You always did that."

I had to look away for a moment.

Jed came by on Saturday with a bay mare called Pepper and a saddle that smelled like oil.

He said he was just passing through.

He had driven eleven miles out of his way.

"She's gentle," he told my stepdaughter. "She doesn't care who's afraid of her."

"I'm not afraid."

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