His Secret Wife Walked Away Pregnant novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Three Gifts

The envelope held three pages, and every page ended in Gavin's signature.

I read them standing at the head of the breakfast table, with my tea going cold.

He gave up every claim to the child, to be filed the day she was born.

He gave up his seat on the board, his father's trust and his place in the Park Avenue flat.

He agreed to the divorce, and to the order of protection, and to never contesting either.

On the last page he had written one line in his own hand, and the pen had dug through the paper.

"I was wrong about all of it."

I put the pages down.

I had expected to feel a victory, and what I felt was tired.

"Is it real?" I asked. "Will a court keep it?"

"A court will keep it," said the lawyer. "Mr. Hargrove has waived the right to a lawyer in writing, and the arresting officers witnessed it. He signed in front of a sergeant."

"He was in a cell."

"He was," said Beatrice, "in the only place where he had ever run out of excuses."

She set her teacup down.

"Bring them in, Bennett."

He went out and came back carrying three flat boxes tied with ribbon, the same three from the first morning.

He set them at my place.

My name was on the top box in her thin writing.

I looked at them, and my hands did not want to move.

"You don't have to," said Bennett, low.

"I do."

I untied the first ribbon.

Inside the tissue lay a gray wool scarf, thick and soft, with a tiny stitched letter J at one end.

"The first Christmas," Beatrice said. "I thought you would be cold, in that kitchen, alone."

I put it around my neck, and it smelled of cedar.

The second box held a book bound in green cloth.

I opened it and found a title page in her handwriting: Recipes of the Hargrove Table.

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