Chapter 17: A Rest

Joanna's POV

Ethan read me the lab result in his kitchen, still with his shirt unbuttoned, and neither of us said anything for a moment.

The shrimp paste had come from a supplier order billed to Inez's own garden club account.

She had not just known about the jar.

She had paid for it, under her own name, on a club invoice.

"That's her signature on the soup," Ethan said.

We sent the lab report to the lawyer before breakfast, and she told us to keep it quiet until the gala.

Toby slept on Bridget's couch for two nights, and on the third morning he said he wanted to go home for his suit.

"For what?" Bridget said.

"The gala." He stared at his hands. "Joanna asked me to stand up and say it. I said I'd do it, and I want to wear my own jacket."

I had asked him once, quietly, over noodles.

He hadn't answered for a day.

"Toby, your mother will be in that house," I said.

"She's at the club till four on Thursdays. She's never missed one."

"I'll go with you," Ethan said.

Ethan had come back to Bridget's that morning with my coat folded over his arm, and with a look I knew now.

He'd stopped holding things two fingers' width away from me.

"No," Toby said. "If she sees you, she'll know. I'll be ten minutes."

I wanted to say no.

But he was twenty-six years old and he had asked for ten minutes, and nobody in his life had ever given him that.

"Ten," I said. "Text me when you're inside."

He texted at nine-forty: In.

He texted at nine-fifty: Getting jacket.

At ten-oh-five Bridget and I were stacking cups at the sink when my phone buzzed again.

It was one line.

Mom's here. Doctor too. They have a bag.

I read it twice and handed the phone to Ethan.

He was already pulling on his boots.

We took his truck, and I held Toby's text open in my lap the whole way.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Called Every Truth a Lie from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.