My Substitute Wife Is Not on the Return Manifest novel · Chapter 5 of 24
Chapter 5: The Last Boat
On Sunday morning Signe took the ferry across to Vineyard Haven to say goodbye to her aunt.
Her aunt met her at the kitchen door with flour on her wrists and did not let go of her for a long time.
"You look thin," she said. "Sit. There's chowder."
"I had breakfast."
"You had a muffin from a woman you don't like."
Signe stared at her.
"Julie called me," her aunt said. "She said you'd turned down the cafe's pie and she'd never seen anything like it."
They ate at the table by the window, and the harbor outside was flat and gray.
Signe kept hearing Brooke on the porch.
He hasn't told you.
She kept seeing the W. E. tag on the tile, and the way Dane had pocketed it.
"You've gone somewhere," her aunt said.
"Someone told me he made a promise," Signe said. "Then she wouldn't say what it was."
"And you didn't ask him."
"No."
Her aunt gave her a look and said nothing more about it.
Her aunt had raised her in this house after the wreck.
She had never once asked Signe to be less quiet.
"So you're leaving the pilot," her aunt said, and buttered a roll.
"I'm leaving for a job."
"I've known you twenty-one years. You don't take a job on the other side of the ocean unless you're leaving something."
Signe turned her spoon over in her bowl.
"He didn't choose me," she said. "He took what was left at the lighthouse and was kind about it. I won't live like that."
"Did you ever tell him?"
"I said part of it yesterday."
"Part." Her aunt shook her head. "You've never asked anyone to stay, Signe, not since you were eight. You let them go first so it doesn't count as being left."
Keep reading free with an account. Start My Substitute Wife Is Not on the Return Manifest from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.
← Chapter 4 · All chapters · Chapter 6 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend