But she had just taken the first step of it.

And I turned and walked back through my house toward the front, and as I walked, I felt the old stillness come down over me like a familiar coat, the quiet that used to arrive right before things that mattered, and I stepped out onto my covered front porch to meet him.

Chapter 19 — On the Porch

He was already through the gate.

He had opened it with a spare key, one my mother would tell me later she had never known he’d copied, cut quietly weeks before against exactly this kind of day.