Chapter 12: The Pen

Lena opened the cabin door before my mother could knock.

"Joan," she said. "Kendall. It's a long drive. Come in out of the cold."

"Lena, honey." My mother stepped inside, brushing frost off her coat. "I hoped we'd catch you."

"I'm sure you did."

"Your mother mentioned where you'd gone."

Kendall followed her in and stood close to the stove with her hands out.

She did not look at me.

My mother carried a leather folder under her arm, and she set it on the coffee table next to the red folder.

"I won't take long," she said. "I'd rather do this here, quietly, than on the fifteenth in front of the family."

"Do what?" I said.

"Nolan, sit down. This is between your wife and me."

"Mom."

"Sit."

I stayed on my feet.

My mother opened the leather folder and took out a single typed page and a pale green check.

"Lena, I've always cared for you. I want that understood."

"I understand."

"This is a generous settlement. Sixty thousand dollars, and you move out of the house by the sixteenth."

She laid the check on the table.

"No fuss, no lawyers, no hard feelings. Kendall is going to have my son's child, and the family has to think of that child."

Lena looked at the check without touching it.

"Your son's child," she said.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Silence Was Not Forgiveness from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.