In the kitchen, the oven timer began to ring.
Nobody moved.
“Your mother needs rest,” Khloe told Ethan. “Take her downstairs.”
My son looked toward the kitchen doorway, toward the narrow passage behind it.
Mercer followed his gaze.
“Downstairs?”
I untied my apron. One knot had tightened with the heat and hours of cooking. I worked it loose slowly.
“That is where I have been sleeping.”
Lydia covered her mouth.
Khloe’s face hardened.
“She asked for somewhere quiet.”
“I asked not to be alone.”
The timer kept ringing until Lydia went into the kitchen and switched it off.
Ethan reached for me.
I stepped back before his fingers touched my sleeve.
“Did you know about the signature?”
He stared at the paper.
Mercer waited. He did not answer for him.
“Yes,” Ethan said.
There was no thunder outside, no breaking glass. Only the small refrigerator motor starting in the kitchen.
I folded the apron and laid it beside the envelope.
“Then you can watch me leave.”
CHAPTER 3 – What He Knew
My smallest suitcase was still open on the basement bed.
I had unpacked only my nightclothes, a photograph, and William’s cardigan. The rest seemed to belong to a woman who knew where she was going.
Lydia came down behind me.
She stopped at the bottom step, looking at the exposed pipes, the stained wall, the rubber gloves beside the laundry sink.
“I heard her tell you to stay in the kitchen,” she said.
I tucked the photograph between two blouses.
“I thought perhaps you wanted to keep busy.”
