Ten Years to Win Her, Two Weeks to Leave Her novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: On Foot
Nolan walked down to the gate alone.
Lydia had wanted to come, and he had said, "Not this one," and she had looked at him for a long second and let him go.
Joan stood at the dome door with her arms folded, watching him cross the dark field.
The gate light made a yellow circle on the gravel.
Harold Wexford stood at the edge of it with no coat on, in the navy suit, with his glasses in his hand.
His shoes were white with dust to the ankle.
He had walked two miles from the highway.
"My driver wouldn't come past the cattle grid," Harold said. "I let him go. It seemed fitting to arrive on foot."
"It's one in the morning."
"I know. I'm told the signal came back."
"It did."
"I'm told your name was on the screen."
"It was."
Harold nodded slowly.
He looked at the dome on the hill, lit from inside, with forty people moving in it.
"I've been the director for twenty-six years," he said. "I've never once stood outside one of my own domes and been unwelcome."
Nolan said nothing.
He did not need to fill the quiet for him.
"You've come to ask me something," he said finally.
"No." Harold turned the glasses over in his fingers. "I came to tell you why. You've earned that, and I don't want you to take it from your brother's confession or from Joan's papers."
"Go on."
"My wife left me when Lydia was twelve."
"I know."
"You know she left. You don't know for whom."
Nolan waited.
"A man in the engineering shop," Harold said. "An electronics technician. I hired him out of a trade school. For eleven years I called him a very good hire. At staff parties, to the Board, to my wife's face. I thought it was a compliment. I thought it was the kindest thing a man in my position could say."
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