Page 113 of The Wild Beneath
After they park, she follows him up the back stairs to the apartment. Evan unlocks the front door and holds it open until she enters. He sheds his jacket, tosses the car keys in a bowl on the shelf.
Annie waits.
He rakes his hands through his hair and holds the back of his neck. “My dad died.” He says it fast, as if he’s trying to expel it from his body.
“Evan.” She’s unsure of the correct thing to say. If there is one. “I’m sorry.”
“A month ago.”
“Amonth?”
“I didn’t find out for at least ten days.”
She puts her hands on her head. “You went weeks without telling me?”
“I was panicked.” A long pause. Then: “He left me Hale Timber, Annie.”
Annie blinks and sees ancient trees on flatbeds. “He what?”
“He stipulated that I had to run it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me!” She can’t mask her anger. How could he hide this from her?
He swallows hard. “I didn’t know how to explain what I felt about it.”
“You could have at least tried.”
“I’ve barely seen you!”
“We’ve been short-staffed. What am I supposed to do? Abandon them?”
He sags onto his forearms over the kitchen island. Silence. Then he stands back up. “Where’ve you been going after work?”
She doesn’t know what to say.
“I know you haven’t been coming straight home.”
She bends down to take off her sneakers. The knots are too tight and they hurt her fingertips. She takes off her damp socks, walks to the bathroom and throws them across the hall into the bedroom hamper.
Evan follows her.
“You need to talk to Ed,” she says, bracing herself against the sink. “You can’t run Hale Timber.”
“What if I’m supposed to?”
“You hated it.”
“What if I can do it differently?”
“All it ever did was take you away from me.” She hugs her arms around herself and looks up at him. “And it turned you into someone we didn’t recognize.”
“Annie, I’ve called the emergency department and they’ve told me you’ve gone home. But then you’re not here. You’re hiding something, too!”
She looks down at the sink.
“Is there someone else?” he asks.
She shakes her head. “It’s not like that.”
