Then I heard a car stop near the side of the house.
I looked over the clothesline.
It was the gray sedan.
The passenger door opened.
My sister stepped out.
I hadn’t seen Monica since the day of my sentencing. She’d changed. Her hair was shorter and lighter, expensively highlighted. She was wearing a camel-colored wool coat and tall leather boots and big sunglasses. She looked like a woman who’d done very well for herself in the last four years.
The man in the baseball cap stayed behind the wheel.
Monica walked across Opal’s side yard, straight through the grass, and stopped on the other side of the clothesline. She was carrying a thick white envelope and a large manila folder.
She took off her sunglasses.
“Hi, Becky,” she said.
Opal stood up on the back steps. She didn’t come down. She just stood in the doorway with her cane, watching.
