His Cousin Was His Real Wife, So I Took My Father's Name Back novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: The Gate
Joan did not answer her sister that night.
She stood, took her coat from the hook, and walked out past the roast chicken without a word.
Her sisters did not go after her.
The older one drove me to the curb herself, where Simon was waiting, and told me through the car window what she knew.
"She came home with an envelope of money and a dress that wasn't hers," she said. "She said the girl had gone to a good family. I never asked which."
Then she shut her mouth, and I understood I would get no more from her that night.
Conrad came home from the hospital on Friday, and by Saturday he had decided to give a party.
"I'm sixty-eight," he said, "and I've had twenty-four birthdays I didn't want. I'd like one I do."
The guests were friends of his who had stood by for twenty-four years.
There was the retired judge and his wife, the doctor who had treated Conrad's wife, and neighbors from Wren Hill who had left casseroles after the garden.
Forty people stood on the lawn under a white tent.
Behind them, at the bottom of the grounds, was the gate.
I had not gone near it.
Simon found me on the terrace in a green dress, holding a glass I had not touched.
"You don't have to do this," he said.
"He's waited all week."
"I mean the garden. You don't have to go down there."
"I know."
"Tell me what you want."
I looked at his hands, which were careful, as always, and which had been all over me two nights ago.
"I want you next to me when I do," I said.
Conrad sat in a chair at the center of the lawn with his oxygen on a little cart.
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