Chapter 11: The Nurse's Kit

By the time Tobias reached the bus shelter, it was empty.

A city bus was pulling away from the curb, and he stood with one hand lifted, watching it turn the corner.

I waited in the car with my mother in the back seat.

"That was his sister," my mother said.

"Yes."

"She looked like she wanted to be seen and could not stand it."

I turned around and stared at her.

"I raised a daughter who hid for twenty-eight years," she said. "I know the look."

When Tobias came back, he said only, "She's gone."

"We'll get her number."

"She never changes it. She never answers."

He drove us home without speaking.

My mother's house was a small yellow bungalow on Larch Street with a ramp my cousin had built that week.

Tobias carried in every box and set up her chair by the window, and when she told him to sit, he sat.

She had him eat a piece of lemon cake.

She asked three questions about his hotels and none about his money.

When he stood to go, she said, "You'll bring her back safe."

"She doesn't need me for that."

"No," my mother said. "But you'll bring her back."

On the porch I stopped him.

"Get in your car."

"Darcy?"

"I'm coming with you. I want to talk."

We sat in his car at the end of Larch Street with the engine off.

Neither of us spoke for a minute.

"You broke my rule," I said.

"I did."

"I told you to wait for my word."

"You did."

"You covered his camera and gave a speech in front of Conor's mother."

"I'd do it again."

"That isn't an apology."

"No," he said. "I'm not sorry about that one. But I should have asked, and I'm sorry I didn't."

"The last time you stayed quiet, I walked toward an altar."

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Fiancé Let Her Ruin Our Wedding but Insisted It Was Just a Joke from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.