Never Divorce a Wife Who Loves You Deeply novel · Chapter 28 of 32

Chapter 28: My Terms

I didn't take it.

I looked at the strip in his open hand, and the gauze on the other one, and his son asleep on his shoulder.

"Get your hand looked at," I said.

"That's not an answer."

"It's the one you get tonight."

He stood there a second longer.

Then he nodded and put the strip back in his shirt pocket, and carried Joey to the SUV one-handed.

Cal drove me home without the radio.

At the bottom of my stairs he said, "You don't have to decide anything for him."

"I know."

I sat at the upright piano until two in the morning and didn't play a note.

On Saturday Scott dropped Joey off at ten, the way he always did.

His right hand was wrapped in a white burn dressing up to the wrist.

Joey ran up the stairs ahead of him.

"Daddy has a mitten," he told me. "He has to wear it for two weeks."

"Scott," I said, before he could go back down. "Come up. Five minutes."

He came up.

Joey went straight to the piano and turned on the lighthouse.

I stood by the window, away from the whales.

"I'll go to the concert," I said.

Scott's face opened.

"But not for you, and not the way you want. If I go, there are three things."

"Anything."

"Joey doesn't sit in the hall. Not when I'm talking. He can be backstage with somebody kind. He can hear the music from there."

"Okay."

"Your mother's showing the monitor video. It's in the program. Kristy's last lullaby."

His jaw tightened. "She took the file off my laptop for the garden. Last year."

"When the video ends, I want the strip on the screen. Both sides. Big enough for the back row."

"Dalton Builders paid for the hall this year," he said. "I signed the check. The man in the booth works for whoever signed it."

"Can you do it without her knowing?"

"Yes."

"And the last thing." I looked at him. "You don't speak for me. Not a word. If Brett stands up and says his piece, you can stand up too. That's all."

"Robin, I want to tell them what I did. In the car. I said I'd go on Channel Eight and I meant it. I'll call the reporter tomorrow."

"Channel Eight will be in the hall," I said. "Your mother invited them."

He looked at me for a long time.

"Okay," he said. "Three things."

That afternoon, while Joey napped, I called a number in Bend.

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