Used While I Pretended to Sleep novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Skiff

"You didn't leave me alone," I said. "You stood up."

"Not first."

"I told you I'd go first."

"I know." He kept his head down over the rail. "I've spent my whole life standing at the back of a room. I wasn't even in the room when your mother died."

I put my hand on his back.

He was shaking, in a good suit, on a dark lawn, forty-six years old.

"Come on," I said.

I drove us home in his truck.

Denton and Tucker followed in Denton's car and went into the house, and I heard the kitchen light come on.

I did not go in after them.

I took Byron's hand and walked him down the path to the boathouse.

He had built it himself, with a slip for two boats and a loft above.

The smell of cedar and varnish hit me the moment I pushed the door.

I had been in here a hundred times.

I had never looked at the thing at the far end.

It sat on sawhorses under a canvas sheet.

"What's that?" I said.

"Nothing."

"Byron."

He didn't answer.

I pulled the canvas off.

It was a small wooden skiff, nine feet long, with the planks steamed and fitted.

Half the seats were still missing.

On the transom, in neat carved letters, he had cut a single word.

JO.

My throat closed.

"Byron," I said. "How long?"

"I laid the keel the week after the wedding." His voice was rough. "I thought I'd give it to you when you moved back to the city. I never got to the last of it."

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