Chapter 14: The Thing She Planned For

Jasper's POV

She had said she would be back by two.

At four I was still sitting on the boat cradle with my phone in my hand.

I had told myself I was ready for it.

A woman raised in that house goes back to it by Sunday.

Lorna had taught me that, and I had never found a reason to doubt it.

The phone rang, and I answered it before the second ring.

It was my lawyer, and he did not say hello.

"I watched your video," he said. "Twice."

"And?"

"You told the whole city you went to that wedding on purpose."

"I did."

"The district attorney can read, Jasper. You violated a protective order, and you admitted it was planned."

"I know."

"You could have waited for me."

"I waited three years."

He breathed out through his nose.

"They'll go after you for the order," he said. "Lorna's lawyers will call it a plot to humiliate her. Don't leave Brooklyn."

I hung up and looked at the sailboat I was supposed to be finishing.

A second call came ten minutes later.

It was the marina owner who had given me forty thousand dollars of work a year for six years.

"I saw the video, MacAvoy," he said. "My wife won't have you on the docks. It's nothing personal."

"It's a little personal."

"I'm sorry," he said, and he did sound sorry, and he cancelled the refit anyway.

I put the phone down on the bench next to her mug.

She had left it there that morning, half full.

I drank the cold coffee out of it, which is a stupid thing for a grown man to do.

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