“Avery.”
“I need to run out.”
“He is! Whatever he’s hiding, he’s an idiot for hiding it tonight.”
I started clearing plates just to have something to do with my hands. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Twenty. I glanced out the window and saw nothing.
“Do you think I should call her?”
Mom looked up.
“Maybe give it a little more time. She probably needed to clear her head. She’ll be back.”
“Do you think I should call her?”
***
I paced from the kitchen to the living room and back again, chewing the inside of my cheek. My daughter had that look before she left. The look she gets right before she does something I’m going to lecture her about for a week.
Nearly 40 minutes after she’d left, footsteps pounded up the porch steps.
The door burst open, and Chloe stood in the frame, cheeks streaked with tears, breathing hard. Clutched against her chest was Richard’s leather tote.
