My Husband Kissed His Girl Best Friend in Front of 200 People, So I Filed for Divorce novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Last Word

I texted him back from behind the bar.

Thursday. Ten o'clock. Here, at the bar. Not my house.

His reply came almost instantly.

Thank you.

Nathan read it over my shoulder.

"Do you want me there?"

"I want you at the end of the bar," I said. "Eating chips. Not looking."

"I'm very good at not looking."

"You're terrible at it. You kept a camera on me for a living."

On Thursday morning my solicitor rang from Corn Street.

She was laughing, which solicitors don't do.

"The bank's released the charge on your house," she said. "Nobody ever advised you on your own before you signed. And your husband told them himself it was sold to you as a loft loan. They don't want to stand behind that in front of a judge."

I sat down on Gran's stairs.

"And the guarantee?"

"Yours is gone. His isn't." She paused. "He's on the hook for every penny of that loan on his own now, if the pub ever fails."

"It won't fail," I said. "I'm doing the books."

The new register came through by email at noon.

I opened it at Gran's kitchen table, where I'd signed with gravy on my thumb.

Proprietor: Natasha Jane Cardew.

One name.

Charges: none.

I went upstairs and opened Gran's jewellery box on the dressing table.

Her pearls. And next to them, my wedding ring, where I'd put it on the first night.

I put the ring in my jeans pocket.

At ten that night the Gold Hound was half full.

A Thursday crowd. The quiz had just finished. The barmaid was wiping down, the barman was stacking the dishwasher.

Nathan was at the end of the bar with a basket of chips, studying the menu very hard.

The front doors opened.

Alfie came in out of the rain.

No Sandra. No dad.

He'd lost weight. His shirt hung on him.

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