Chapter 20: Dawn on the Porch

I did not sleep.

I sat in the kitchen in Mama's house with Bean on my chest and watched the window go from black to gray.

Gwen was in a cell on the other side of the county. Hal was in the cell next to hers.

I should have felt finished.

I felt tired and wide awake at once, and nothing in the house had changed.

At ten past six I heard a car door and went to the front window.

My husband was sitting on the porch steps.

He still wore the black suit from the ballroom. The knees were stained with wet grass and the cuffs were gray with dust.

He had been there for a while. The dew on the rail had a clean spot where his arm had rested.

I took Bean out onto the porch and shut the screen door behind me.

He stood up fast.

"Sit," I said. "You look like you'll fall."

He sat.

"Where have you been?" I asked.

"Her mother's house first. I got there at midnight and rang until the light came on."

"Did she let you in?"

"She stood in the doorway in her robe and listened to the whole thing on the step."

His voice was ragged and slow.

"Then she hit me."

I looked at his face. There was a red mark under his left eye that I had taken for tiredness.

"Once?" I asked.

"Four times. I didn't move. She said I should have told her six years ago, when she could still have buried him knowing."

"What did you say?"

"That she was right."

He rubbed his hands over his face.

"Then I drove to the cemetery. The gate was locked, so I climbed it. I sat at his grave until it got light."

"And?"

"I told him too. It felt stupid. I did it anyway."

He looked up at me.

"I'm not asking you for anything, Erin."

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