Chapter 4 — Abernathy

In May, a man knocked on my door on a Saturday morning, and when I opened it, my old landlord was standing on the step with his hat in his hands like a man in an old film.

Thomas Abernathy had gotten smaller. He’d always been stooped, but now there was a thinness to him, and he had a folder pinned under one arm.

I didn’t invite him in. I stood in the doorway with my hand on the frame.

“I know,” he said. “I know. I’ll say it out here.”

Behind me I could hear Nolan’s chair scrape. I pulled the door most of the way shut.

“My daughter’s in Dayton,” Abernathy said. “I sold the building in the fall. I’m going up there in July.”