dollars.
Gideon’s face changed.
Slowly.
Completely.
He stared at her.
Then wrote:
What fifty dollars?
Rosalie stopped breathing.
She reread the sentence.
The money you gave
him.
Gideon shook his head.
Rosalie’s pulse began hammering.
For me.
He shook his head again.
Harder.
Then he took the notebook.
I never gave your father fifty dollars.
Rosalie stood so suddenly the chair scraped backward.
Gideon could not hear the sound, but he saw the movement.
Her wedding morning returned in fragments.
Her father fastening his coat.
Merrick drinking whiskey before breakfast.
