Chapter 3: What Walter Knew
The rest of Saturday was quiet in the way that means something is being planned.
The kids drew for two hours.
A dragon that stretched across four driveways.
A hopscotch grid that reached all the way to the Patels' mailbox.
Dana's youngest wrote her own name in letters three feet tall.
Nobody told her to stop.
I watched from the porch.
Walter watched from his.
Brooke's curtains didn't move again.
By noon the kids had drifted inside for lunch and the street was empty.
I was stacking cups from the cooler Dana had brought out when Walter came down his front steps for the first time all morning.
He moved slowly — he always had — but he walked straight across the circle toward me.
"You got a minute?" he said.
"Of course."
He looked back at his house once.
Then he sat down on the low wall at the edge of my driveway and folded his hands on his knees.
"I owe you an apology," he said.
"For the meeting.
For not saying more."
"Walter, you don't owe me anything."
"I do." He looked at the chalk dragon on the pavement.
"She told me she'd already spoken to everyone.
That you'd all agreed.
I didn't know she'd gone to the kids directly until your boy told me Tuesday afternoon."
I went still.
"My son talked to you?"
"He came up on the porch to ask if I wanted to see a rock he found.
We talked for a bit.
He mentioned what she'd said to him." Walter's jaw tightened.
"That she'd already cleared it with his mother."
"She lied to a nine-year-old."
"Yes." He said it flatly.
No softening.
"She did."
I didn't know what to do with that, so I didn't do anything.
I just sat with it.
"She's not who I thought she was," Walter said.
"I want you to know that I know that."
"How long have you known?"
He was quiet for a moment.
A long one.
"Long enough," he said.
"Too long."
He stood up, and I thought he was done.
But he turned back.
"There's something else.
About the house." He paused.
"It's not in her name.
None of it is.
The deed, the accounts — all of it is still mine.
She pushed to have it transferred after the wedding.
I kept saying I'd get to it." He looked at his hands.
"I never got to it."
I didn't know what he was telling me exactly.
But something about the way he said it made me pay attention.
"Walter — is everything okay?
With you?"
He almost smiled.
"I've been better.
But I've also been worse." He looked at the chalk bucket still sitting on his top step.
"I put that out this morning because I wanted her to see me do it.
I wanted her to know I remember what this street is supposed to be."
He went back inside.
I stood in my driveway for a long time after that.
Dana appeared at my elbow.
She'd been close enough to hear most of it.
"The deed is still in his name," she said quietly.
"That's what he said."
"Why is she pushing so hard for a street full of kids to be quiet if she's not even settled in legally?"
I didn't have an answer.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
May you like
I let it go to voicemail.
The voicemail was eleven seconds long and completely silent — except, right at the end, the faint sound of someone breathing before the call disconnected.
