“He’ll be even more furious when he hears what she says when he’s not around,” I said.

The sun was lower when I got back to the Clara farmhouse.

I put my car keys on the wooden table in the entryway.

The house was perfectly still.

At four o’clock I heard a heavy car door shut out in the gravel driveway.

I looked out through the front window.

Ethan was walking toward the porch steps.

He had on his gray suit pants and a white dress shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.