Chapter 22: Rent

Samantha's POV

My mother sat in the first booth with her purse on one side and a shortbread tin on the other.

She had not ordered coffee.

Waylon's aunt stood at the counter with the pot in her hand, watching her.

A dozen people were in the diner, and every one of them was suddenly very interested in their eggs.

I walked down the aisle in my apron.

I stopped at the booth, and I didn't sit.

"Samantha," Mom said.

"Hi."

"I came to say something. I wanted to say it before I lost my nerve."

"All right."

"I'd like you to sit."

"I'll stand."

She nodded.

The old man in the booth behind her put down his fork very carefully.

She pushed the tin across the table with two fingers.

"This is your rent," she said. "Every envelope, from the day you moved in. I never touched it."

She swallowed.

"I told myself I was saving it for you. I don't think that's true. I think I wanted to have something over you."

"Why are you telling me?"

"Because Camille said it at the dinner. And she was right. I could have turned around."

"Say it plainly, Mom."

Her chin shook.

"I knew you weren't in the van," she said. "I knew at the second exit. I looked at your sister, and I looked at the road, and I chose her."

Nobody in the diner moved.

"I chose her because she was the loudest," she said.

"And you were the one I knew would forgive me. I've been counting on it your whole life."

I stood there with my hands in my apron.

I had waited twenty-eight years for her to say that.

Now I couldn't feel the part of me that had waited.

Keep reading free with an account. Start They Forgot Me at a Rest Stop, I Forgot Them Forever from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.