Chapter 15: What Corin Did

Nicolette picked up her purse and walked out through the front hall, past the lilies and the pink-dressed woman, and nobody stopped her.

The front door banged.

A car started in the drive.

Corin looked at his mother, and then at me, and then he ran out after the car.

The living room was silent except for the tablet in my lap, which kept the note open on the television.

Glenda did not look at the screen.

She looked at the empty wing chair with the yellow gift bag at its foot.

"Everyone," Knox said, in his work voice. "I think the party's over. Please take your things."

The women gathered their purses with their eyes down.

Two of Glenda's sisters whispered to each other in the doorway.

I closed the tablet.

Glenda still had not spoken.

"Come on," Knox said to me quietly. "I'll take you home."

He meant his place, and I did not correct him.

"Yes," I said. "Please."

We went out past the balloons.

At six that evening, rain began on Knox's kitchen window.

I had eaten a piece of toast, and I was holding a mug of weak tea with a slice of lemon in it.

My phone buzzed on the table.

It was from Corin, the second message he had sent me that was not about the baby.

Please let me tell you why she said that. I'll say it once. You can have it in writing, or in person, whichever you can stand.

I looked at Knox, who was drying a pan at the sink.

"He wants to explain what Nicolette meant about Mark," I said.

"You don't owe him that."

"No." I turned the phone over in my hand. "But I want it said in front of you."

Knox put the pan down.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Daily Habits of Another Woman from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.