A Life Beyond Us novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Ask Him What He Said

I took my hand out from under his.

"Hugh, the Marriott is four blocks from here," I said. "Go get a room. Tom, the couch has a blanket on it."

"Maura..."

"I believe you about the motel. I don't believe I can hear the rest tonight."

Hugh stood up at once and set his chair back under the table.

At the door he stopped with his hand on the knob.

"I'll be at the Marriott until you tell me to go," he said.

"I didn't say that."

"No," he said. "You didn't."

When the door closed behind him, Tom looked at me for a long time.

Then he went to the living room and lay down on the couch in his good jacket, and I went upstairs and did not sleep.

At seven in the morning somebody pounded on the front door.

I came down in my robe and found my sister on the porch with a paper bag of bagels and her scrubs still on from the night shift.

"I got your text at two," Bridget said. "You said 'call me at seven, don't ask.' So I'm here, and I'm asking."

She looked past me.

Tom was sitting up on the couch with the blanket around his waist and his hair flattened on one side.

"Hi, Tom," Bridget said.

"Hi, Bridge."

"Are you the reason my sister texted me at two in the morning with no punctuation?"

"Partly," Tom said.

"Great. I love partly."

She came in, dropped the bag on the kitchen table and put her hands on her hips.

"Somebody start talking, and somebody make coffee, and I don't care which order."

I told her about the roof.

I told her all of it, from the clasp on my necklace to Darcy lifting her glass at me.

Keep reading free with an account. Start A Life Beyond Us from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.