My Wife Sent Me to a Psych Ward, So I Gave Her a Big Surprise novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Reason

I took her to the visiting room at Larch Hollow because I wanted her to see it again.

It was Sunday afternoon.

The same table stood in the middle of the floor with the same two chairs.

Above the door, the red lamp was lit.

Rosalind stopped in the doorway and looked up at it.

"Is it recording?" she said.

"It's always recording."

"Good," she said, and sat in her old chair.

I sat in mine, facing the lamp, because I had never learned to sit anywhere else.

A nurse I did not know shut the door behind us.

My mother and Maura waited in the hall.

Rosalind folded her hands on the table.

They were thinner than they had been, and she had taken off her rings.

"You said you had a reason," I said.

"I do."

"Then say it."

"Three years ago in September I was looking for our tax return." She kept her eyes on her hands. "I found an invoice for diesel fuel from a company I'd never heard of, and my name was on the account."

"Teller Fuel."

"I took it to Brooks that night. I thought it was a mistake."

"What did he say?"

"He said it wasn't a mistake." Her voice was flat. "He said you set it up, and you'd put me on it so I'd be the one who fell. He said you were meeting the auditors Monday, and I'd be in prison by Christmas."

I did not move.

"I didn't believe him. Then I did." She breathed. "And then he said the other thing."

"What other thing?"

"You'd told me you wanted to be anywhere but my cousin's wedding. He said he'd heard you say worse. He said you'd stood on the loading dock at midnight and talked about the river."

"I never said a word about the river."

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