His Healing Touch novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: His Confession

Freddie spent the night at the retired nurse's house across the street, because he had decided he liked her cat.

The nurse had said it kindly at the door.

"After today he'll sleep better with a purring thing next to him," she said. "Go and be with his father."

The house was so quiet that the refrigerator hum sounded like traffic.

Stewart stood at the kitchen island in his shirtsleeves with a glass of whiskey he hadn't touched.

He hadn't turned on any light except the one over the stove.

"She said to ask me," he said without turning around.

"You don't have to answer her."

"I want to answer you."

I came and stood across the granite from him.

He looked at the glass and not at me.

"Freddie got his diagnosis two years and three months ago," he said.

"A Tuesday."

"The specialist asked for both parents."

"I was in Rotterdam, on a call with a port authority, about a crane."

I said nothing.

"Helena called me seven times from the parking lot of that office."

"I let it go to the assistant."

"I told myself it was a crane that cost forty million, and she was a grown woman who could sit in a room."

His voice was very level.

"I came home three days later and she'd packed his things and her own."

"She was standing in the front hall holding him, and he was screaming."

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