Life after Goodbye novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Guest of Honor

The Lakeshore Club ballroom had a chandelier the size of a car and two hundred people in it.

I walked in on Cormac's arm in a dark green dress that hid nothing about my twelve weeks.

I had decided I was done hiding.

A cream envelope lay folded in my clutch, signed that morning by the director of Birchline Diagnostics.

Under it was the old phone with the whole tape on it.

"You can still go home," Cormac said low, near my ear.

"I know."

"I'm only saying it once."

"Thank you for saying it once."

He squeezed my hand and did not let go.

Across the room, my father sat at the head table in a new suit, with a paper crown someone had put on him as a joke.

He saw me and lit up.

Beside him stood Ansel, who saw Cormac and stopped smiling.

"Who is this?" he asked when we reached them.

"My doctor," I said.

Ansel looked at our hands.

"Your doctor holds your hand?"

"Tonight he does."

My father laughed, delighted, and shook Cormac's hand with both of his.

"Any friend of Calla's," he said. "Sit. Sit by me."

Kendrick was at the next table.

He stood up when he saw me, and the napkin slid off his knee.

Chelsea sat at his side in a white dress with her hair pinned up, and her hand lay on his sleeve.

She looked from my belly to Cormac's face and back, and nothing at all moved in her smile.

Kendrick's eyes went to the hand in mine, and his jaw tightened.

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