Chapter 10: Before He Opens the Shop

I was back in the kitchen by half past six, with sawdust still in my braid.

Frances was already at the stove.

She looked at me once, up and down, and went back to stirring the oatmeal.

"You smell like cedar," she said.

"It's the new soap."

"It is not."

"Frances."

"I'm not asking," she said.

"I'm only saying that if you smell like a boatyard, the guests will ask where you got it."

She set a bowl of oatmeal in front of me.

I ate it standing up, because I could not sit still.

Declan had taken the envelope with the capsule, and I did not know when.

He had a way of getting into places.

But he had left something behind in this house, and I had not looked.

His study was a small room at the back of the first floor.

It still had his diplomas on the wall and his good chair, and it smelled of his aftershave.

I had not gone in there since the day I put his bags on the porch.

I sat in the chair and opened the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet.

It was full of tax papers and car manuals.

Behind them, at the very back, was a cardboard shipping box, flat and sealed with tape.

It had a printed label for a pharmacy in Portland.

Under the label, in smaller type, was my name and the words *1 capsule daily, take with water.*

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