On Our 6th Anniversary, My Husband Gave My Home to Her novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: The Heartbeat
My mother found Grady on a bench by the courthouse elevators, and I followed far enough to hear every word.
He stood up when he saw her cane.
"Mrs. Ostrow."
"Sit down," she said.
He sat.
She stood over him with both hands on the cane and her chin up.
"Six years I made you Sunday dinner," she said. "Six years I called you son."
"I know."
"My husband said you were a man who never came into the room. He said it the day he met you. I told him not to be unkind."
Grady closed his eyes.
"I was wrong to say it, and he was right to notice." She tapped the floor. "You will pay for that baby every month until it is grown. You will send no flowers. You will not call my daughter's phone."
"Yes, ma'am."
"When it is old enough to ask who its father is, you will answer the truth."
"Yes."
"Say it."
"I'll tell it the truth."
She nodded once.
"Good. Now go and be sorry somewhere else."
He went.
My mother turned and looked at me with her eyes full.
"I've waited eight years for somebody to do that for your father," she said. "Take my arm."
The next morning, the obstetrician's waiting room smelled of lavender soap and carpet cleaner.
I sat in a chair too small for me with my mother on one side and Keaton on the other.
The nurse at the desk slid a clipboard across.
I filled it out.
Name. Date of birth. Insurance.
At the line marked Father of baby, I wrote Grady's name in clear print, because the baby deserved the truth on its first piece of paper.
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