Chapter 4: Wednesday

Missy showed up Wednesday at four with two bottles of wine and a printout of Lacy's face.

She taped the printout to my dartboard.

"I don't have darts," I said.

"I brought darts."

She had. They were in her purse next to a can of cat food, because her evil cat only eats when she's bribed.

"Mental health is real," Missy said in a baby voice, and threw.

She missed the board entirely and hit my kitchen calendar.

"That's July," I said. "You killed July."

"July had it coming."

I laughed for the first time in three days.

It hurt my back, and I didn't care.

At four thirty, a pickup I didn't know parked in front of the old man's house.

Wiley got out in a gray T-shirt.

A small girl got out of the other side in a green frog shirt and light-up sneakers.

Then he reached into the truck bed and lifted out a window air conditioner.

Missy put her wine down.

"Is that him?"

"That's him."

"He's carrying a whole appliance. With one arm."

"I see it, Missy."

I went out on the porch.

Wiley looked up at me.

"Your neighbor comes home tomorrow," he said. "His kitchen's ninety-one. I'm not taking him back to the ER on Saturday."

"Where'd you get that?"

"Hardware store. It's Wednesday."

"What's Wednesday got to do with it?"

The girl answered for him.

"Wednesday is my day with Daddy," she said. "Every Wednesday and every other weekend. I'm Lula. I'm six and three quarters."

"I'm Carlie."

"Do you have a frog?"

"No."

She looked disappointed in me personally.

The old man's daughter-in-law had given Wiley a key.

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