Sold to the Man Who Took Me, but I Hold His Life novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Boards in February

My father came down the Boardwalk on the first Saturday in February with a bottle in a paper bag.

I was behind the counter at Pearl's, with the door propped open for the first mild morning in three weeks.

Half of Atlantic City was out in coats, walking dogs, buying coffee, and looking at the sea.

He stopped in front of my window.

He had not shaved, and the sports-book windbreaker hung off him.

"Roz," Frank said. "Honey."

The retired lifeguard, in the doorway with his peppermint, turned around and looked at him.

So did the two women from the lunch counter.

So did the boy of twelve, who had never bought anything.

"Honey, I've got nowhere," my father said. His voice cracked, and it carried.

"Your aunt won't let me in the door," he said. "I did what I could for you. I told them the truth. I need a place to sleep."

Nobody on the Boardwalk said a word.

I came around the counter.

I wiped my hands on my apron, and I stood in the shop door with the whole of the Boardwalk looking on.

"You took the envelope," I said.

"I said I was sorry," my father said.

"You sold me on a Friday in November for sixty-one thousand dollars," I said. "You sold me again on a Saturday for a thousand a week."

"Roz," he said.

"You never asked me what it was," I said. "Not once. Not what I did at night, not why I came home at three. You never asked if I was hurt."

He opened his mouth.

"I'd have told you," I said. "I'd have told you in November."

My father's face worked.

The lifeguard set his peppermint down on the rack, carefully, and folded his arms.

One of the women from the lunch counter said, in a carrying voice, "Shame on you, Frank Dunleavy."

Another one said it.

It went down the Boardwalk like a wind, from the benches and the closed arcades, the people who had known me since I was six.

The boy of twelve stared at him with enormous eyes.

My father stood in the middle of the planks in front of Pearl's with his bottle, and nobody moved toward him, and nobody gave him an inch.

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