Kiss Me One Last Time novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Friday Rules

Suzette quits the transfusions at the breakfast table in front of her stepmother and stepsister, and leaves with one suitcase. Finley laughs when she says she will be dead by Christmas.

Finley did not come to bed that night.

I lay on my side of it with a cotton ball taped to my arm and listened to him pace the study.

At six, I heard the front door open and the click of Roberta's heels on the marble.

She had her own key.

She had had it since the day we married.

I put on my cardigan and went down to the kitchen.

Roberta stood at the counter pouring coffee into my mother's blue mug, which she had taken from my shelf years ago.

Sabrina sat at the island in a cream robe, scrolling her phone.

Finley leaned in the doorway to the pantry with the letter in his hand.

The housekeeper was stacking dishes at the sink and pretending to be deaf.

"There she is," Roberta said, without turning around. "Our birthday girl."

"Good morning," I said.

"Finley tells me you had a scene yesterday."

"I stopped giving blood."

"You had a tantrum," Roberta said, "and then you waved a piece of paper at him."

She finally turned.

She was fifty-eight and sleek, with a silver bob that never moved and pearls in her ears.

She looked at me.

"Friday at eight," she said. "The suite is booked. Sabrina's counts are bad, and I won't have her pay for your moods."

"No," I said.

The kitchen went quiet.

The housekeeper's hands stopped in the water.

"I'm sorry?" Roberta said.

"I'm not coming Friday. I'm not coming any Friday."

"Suzette," Finley said.

"I'm not finished."

My voice shook, so I made it louder.

"I've given blood every other Wednesday for two years. Since February I've done it while I'm sick."

"Oh, please," Sabrina said, not looking up from her phone.

"I have a tumor the size of a grapefruit in my right kidney. The doctor wrote it down for you, Finley, because I couldn't make you listen."

"Roberta told me about the doctor," he said.

"Told you what?"

"That you'd try this."

I looked at him.

He did not look away this time, which was worse.

"The letterhead is real," I said. "Call the number."

"I'm not going to call a number you gave me."

"It's printed on the top."

"Anyone can print a number."

Roberta set down the mug with a small click.

"Sweetheart," she said, softly, the way she spoke to waiters. "Nobody here is angry with you. We've all been under strain. But you cannot hold a girl's life hostage because you want attention."

"I want attention?"

"You asked him for a kiss in front of a nurse."

Sabrina snickered.

I thought I might be sick on the tile.

I had been sick for eight months, and not once had a person in that house asked me how I felt.

I put my hand on the counter.

"If Sabrina's life depends on one donor," I said, "then you have been gambling it on a woman who is dying."

"Stop saying that word," Finley said.

His voice cracked a little on it.

I noticed, and I put it away.

"Sabrina's life," he said, "is on you, Suzette. If she gets worse and you walked away, that's on you."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

The housekeeper dropped a plate.

Nobody looked at it.

I turned and went up the stairs.

The suitcase was in the back of the closet, the one I had carried to our honeymoon.

I packed my mother's photograph, the pill bottles, four sweaters, and a pair of boots.

I did not pack the jewelry Finley had given me.

I took off my wedding ring and carried it down in my fist.

They were all still in the kitchen.

Sabrina had stopped scrolling.

Roberta was whispering something to Finley, and he was shaking his head.

I put the ring in the sugar bowl and put the lid back on.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Roberta asked.

"It means I'll see you at a courtroom, or at a funeral," I said. "You pick."

"You're being dramatic."

"Where are you going?" Finley said.

"Lawrenceville."

"You have nowhere in Lawrenceville."

"I have a friend."

"You have no money. Your cards are on my account."

"Then cancel them."

I was so tired my knees felt loose.

I stood in my own kitchen in front of the three people who had taken my blood and my house and my mother's mug.

"Finley," I said. "I will be dead by Christmas."

For a moment, nobody moved.

Then he laughed.

It was short and tired and astonished.

It was the laugh of a man who thinks he has just heard a joke.

"Sure," he said. "Be careful with the suitcase."

I picked it up and walked out of the house with my head high.

I did not look back until I reached the sidewalk.

I knew he was still smiling at the window.

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