"Nine," Virgil said. "A man from the church is coming with a van. For the chair and the boxes. There's not much."
Eamon nodded. He didn't say anything else. After a while Virgil opened his door and began the long business of getting out, and I got out of the back to help, and Eamon stayed where he was, and I walked the old man up the four porch steps, cane and foot, cane and foot, with the rain finally beginning to let up into a fine cold mist off the lake.
At the door he turned around and looked at me. He had his key out, on a ring with a plastic tag from a hardware store, and he could not get it into the lock, and I took it from him, gently, and opened the door, and gave him back the key.
"I'm going to give you back your six dollars and forty cents," he said.
"No, you're not."
"I'll find a way."
"Pay somebody else back," I said. "That was the deal."
He looked at me for a long time. Then he reached up, slowly, with his shaking right hand, and I knew what he was going to do and I let him. He touched my chin. Just the tip of his thumb, very lightly, on the little white fishhook of a scar. His hand was trembling so hard I felt it like a hummingbird. Then he took it away.
"You turned out," he said. "You turned out all right. That's all I— Your mother was right. I don't get to choose what you kept. But you turned out."
Then he went inside, and closed the door, and I heard the lock turn, on the second try.