An Anonymous Confession Game Ruined My Wedding novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Saturdays

On Saturday, at ten in the morning, a toddler in an orange life vest sat on the end of the east dock with her legs hanging over the edge.

I sat next to her with one hand on the back of her vest.

"Boat," Poppy said, pointing at a trawler going out past the lighthouse.

"That's a big one."

"Big boat."

"That one's the Karlsen boat. The young guy on our crew has cleaned the bilge on it three times."

"Ew."

"Exactly."

She leaned her head against my arm, and the gray whale went into my lap.

I held it, because it was my job now.

Dalton stood at the head of the dock, twenty feet back, where I had told him to stand.

He had not come closer. He had not asked to.

He stayed there for a while with his hands in his pockets. Then he walked down halfway and stopped.

"I'm not asking you for anything," he said.

"I know."

"I wanted you to hear what I did. So you don't have to wonder."

I waited.

"I told the road department the whole thing," he said. "My name, hers, the date it started. I put in my own papers Monday. They accepted it before I finished the sentence."

"Dalton."

"I took a night job at the rail yard in Duluth. Seven to three. It's less money, and I'm home when she wakes up. I'm learning to braid."

"Can you?"

"I can make one lump that stays."

Poppy giggled, because she'd been listening.

"I knew," he said. "That's what I can't get past. Six years I knew, and I stood at your engagement party, and I let you hold my kid. You were the best friend I ever had, and I used you as a place to put my lie."

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