I stood beside my refrigerator and said nothing at all.
Something in his face finally cracked.
“You’re really doing this,” he said.
“You did this,” I said. “I’m just not stopping it.”
He opened his mouth.
Then he closed it again.
For the first time in twenty-seven years, Mark Whitaker had nothing to say to me.
It took them two and a half hours to reload the truck.
Officer Hale and the officer with the ponytail, whose name turned out to be Officer Brandt, stayed the entire time. The neighbors across the street eventually stopped pretending not to watch and simply stood there, openly watching. The older man with the golden retriever brought Rachel and me two lawn chairs from his garage and set them at the edge of my yard.
“Figured you might want to sit,” he said. “I’m Walt. I live in the gray one.”
