The Lost Quarterback Returns novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Unfit

Bernadette didn't wait for morning.

At nine that night the Lincoln pulled up outside the motel, and she crossed the walkway in her navy coat with the cane tapping on the concrete.

I opened the door before she reached it.

"You read it," she said.

"I read it."

"Then you understand it's not personal." She stepped into the room, took in the two beds and the bag of vending machine pretzels, and her mouth tightened. "Everett. Your father is worried sick."

Rhett sat up on his bed.

"He knows where I am," he said.

"Come home with me. You'll have your own room, a proper dinner, your own bed."

"I'm with my mom."

"Alana is not well, darling."

"She's fine."

"A judge will see the Alder House file, and the judge will see what the doctors saw." Bernadette turned to me, and her face was perfectly kind. "There is an easy way, Alana. Sign over temporary guardianship. Go back to Alder House, voluntarily, for a rest. I'll withdraw the petition tonight, and nobody ever hears a word."

"You want me to walk back into that building."

"I want you safe."

"The file says more than delusional," I said. "It says declines retest."

Her expression didn't change.

Nothing in her face moved at all, and that was how I knew I'd hit something.

"Medical shorthand," she said. "It means nothing."

"You were in the corridor, Grandma," Rhett said.

She turned.

He had stood up, and he was shaking, but his chin was high.

"I heard Dad in the garage. He said you said 'not today.' He said it twice." Rhett's voice cracked. "You knew there was something wrong with me, and you decided Mom was the problem."

"Everett."

"My name is Rhett."

"It's Everett, and I named you."

"You named a baby." He took a breath. "I don't think that was me."

I'd never been so proud of anyone in my life.

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