CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Franklin went around the back. How often had he done this before? Pulled up at Irvy’s, ridden virtually to the back door and clomped into the family room after a cursory knock. Like normal, yet dead wrong.
In contrast to that morning, the five kids were scattered over the room. Isla sat at a tiny table on a tiny chair sucking a tuft of her hair while she drew with a crayon clutched in her fist. Her two oldest brothers were squabbling. The other two sat separately, uncharacteristically pale and mute.
When he walked in shucking off his jacket, Kendra was rubbing her stomach and pacing. For a tick, Franklin worried that her baby was coming. She startled when she saw him, apparently oblivious to the motorbike’s arrival, or his knock and entry.
She scurried to the island
