He Hid Me Twelve Years and Paraded Her, So I Quit Both novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: Meatloaf for Four
Walter Stroud came to Bea's two-flat on Monday night with a lemon pie in one hand and his cane in the other.
Bea opened the door in her apron and did not step aside.
"You can't just show up," she said. "I haven't cooked for you since 2011."
"You cooked for me every Friday for twenty-five years."
"That was a job. This is a favor."
"Then I'll be grateful," Walter said, and held up the pie.
She took it, and sniffed it, and stepped aside.
I watched them from the kitchen table, where Lacey sat across from me with her hands wrapped around a mug.
"Is that what twenty-five years looks like?" Lacey whispered.
"I think that's what twenty-five years looks like when nobody's said sorry yet."
Walter took the chair at the end, and Bea set a plate of meatloaf in front of him with a bang.
"Eat," she said. "Then be useful."
For ten minutes nobody talked about Everett.
Walter told a story about a client who had once sent him a live goat, and Bea corrected three details of it, and Lacey laughed so hard she had to put her fork down.
It was the first time I had seen her laugh without checking the room first.
Then her phone buzzed on the table.
The screen said Everett.
She looked at me, and I nodded.
"Speaker," I said. "And record it. You do that now, right?"
"I record everything now," Lacey said, and pressed the screen.
"Lacey." Everett's voice came into the kitchen, pleasant and quick. "Where are you?"
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