I Married a Stranger to Ruin My Groom novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Room 412

At eight the next morning Harvey drove me to the hospital, and on the way he stopped at a gas station.

"What does she like?" he asked. "Your mother."

"Butterscotch candies," I said. "And men who admit when they're wrong."

He came back with two bags of the candies and put both in my lap.

"I'm not wrong yet," he said. "I'm only early."

My mother was propped up in bed in Room 412 with her reading glasses on and the livestream still open on her tablet.

She looked at me, then at the tall man in the doorway holding a bag of butterscotch.

"So you're the one," she said.

"Mom, this is Harvey."

"I watched you marry my daughter on a courthouse floor at midnight, young man. On a phone. With the sound off, because my nurse wouldn't let me turn it up."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Did you sign with a good pen?"

"The clerk's, ma'am. It skipped."

"Hm." She took a candy, unwrapped it and pointed it at him. "Do you hit?"

"No."

"Do you drink?"

"One glass of whiskey a month, and I regret it."

"Do you cheat?"

Harvey was quiet for a second.

"I was engaged to a woman who did," he said. "I would not do that to anyone."

My mother looked at me, and I knew that look.

It was the look she'd given me when I was nine and had told the truth about a broken lamp.

"He'll do," she said.

I laughed, and it turned into something wetter, and she held out her free arm.

I was leaning down into it when a man's voice came from the hall.

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