“No,” he whispered.
That single word did more to frighten my mother than the legal documents had.
“Arthur?” she said.
But he did not answer.
The woman climbed the porch steps with calm, careful movements. She did not look angry. She did not look pleased. She looked like someone who had waited a very long time to knock on that door, and now that the day had come, she had no reason to hurry.
Behind her, the passenger door opened.
An older man stepped out.
He was tall but slightly bent at the shoulders, with a cane in one hand and a gray scarf tucked neatly beneath his coat. His face was thinner than it had been in the old photographs I had seen hidden in my father’s office years earlier, but the sharp eyes were the same.
Thomas Reed.
The man my father had cursed for half my life.
