His Ring on Her Finger, My Name on the Door novel · Chapter 21 of 32
Chapter 21: Fever
The room was so quiet Francesca could hear the clock in the hall.
She remembered.
Not all at once.
It came back slowly, from underneath.
The dorm on Bay State Road. The radiator clanking. Her sheets soaked through.
She'd had the flu for three days and told nobody.
At four in the morning she'd woken up on the bathroom floor with no idea how she got there.
She'd been so hot the tiles felt like ice.
She'd found her phone and called the only number she knew by heart.
He answered on the first ring.
"Francesca? What's wrong?"
"Papa, I'm sick." Her own voice, small and cracked, eleven years old again. "I'm really sick."
"Stay on the floor. Don't try to stand up. I'm coming."
That was all.
She'd fallen asleep with the phone against her cheek.
When she woke up it was past noon, and there was one voicemail from her mother.
Your father has been in an accident on the Jamaicaway. He's gone.
She had never put the two things together.
For three years, the call had been something she dreamed in a fever.
She had never once asked where he was going.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of His Ring on Her Finger, My Name on the Door are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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