April Joke, Permanent Scar novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Ground Rule

On Monday morning Seth pulled up in front of Beth's house at seven-thirty, still in his scrubs from the night shift.

He had a paper cup of tea for me on the dash, and he had not made a speech about it.

I got in, buckled up, and held the cup with both hands.

"One rule," he said, pulling away from the curb.

"For what?"

"For the truck." His eyes stayed on the road. "We don't talk about Dylan in here."

I turned my head and looked at him.

"I've spent three days talking about nothing else," I said. "My sister, the bank, the folder, the doctor. I've said his name so often I'm sick of it."

"That's why," he said. "Everywhere else you have to be the woman it happened to. In here you can just be somebody going to an appointment."

I looked at the road for a while.

"And you?" I asked. "Do you get a rule?"

"I get to say what the rule is. That's my rule."

I laughed, and it surprised both of us.

"Fine," I said. "No Dylan in the truck."

The lawyer was a woman in her sixties with reading glasses on a chain, recommended by one of Beth's regulars.

She read the sixth page of the folder twice and set it down very carefully.

"I have been doing this thirty-one years," she said, "and I would pay to see his face when this is read aloud in court."

"The doctor says it's mine to use."

"Then we use it." She tapped the screenshot Seth had sent her of Friday's group chat. "Unstable, they wrote, and she answered with hearts. Let her keep posting. Every word is a witness statement."

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