He didn’t say yes.
He didn’t say no.
He said, “I was going to put it back.”
Which is what they all say.
I’d heard it in the ER a hundred times from a hundred different men on a hundred different gurneys.
I was going to put it back.
Gene set his fork down.
“Nancy,” he said. “I think I ought to go.”
“No.”
I didn’t know I was going to say it that loud.
Emma looked up from her coloring.
“You stay right there, Gene Mercer.”
“You’ve been eating Sunday dinner at this table since July, and you’re the only man at it who hasn’t lied to me.”
Kyle flinched.
“Mama, that’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Ninety-one thousand, two hundred dollars, Kyle. That’s not fair either.”
“That’s your father’s.”
“That was for the roof. And my knees. And Emma’s college.”
Emma looked up again at her name.
Rachel got up and took the kids into the back bedroom.
