Chapter 14: The Cheque

Dalton's mother arrived at Joanne's at nine the next morning, in a camel coat and pearls, with an envelope.

I knew her car before I saw her.

It was the silver sedan that had been parked in my driveway every Christmas for seven years.

"Don't," Joanne said from the window. "Monica, I mean it. Let me get the door."

"She drove here," I said. "I'll hear her."

I had slept three hours on Joanne's pull-out with the laptop under my pillow.

Dalton's voice had been in my head all night, cheerful, saying he had cancelled my appointment for my own good.

I opened the door in a sweatshirt and a bare face.

Dalton's mother looked me over.

She took her time about it, from my hair to my socks.

"May I come in?"

"You can say it on the porch."

Her mouth tightened, but she stayed where she was.

She was sixty-three, with Dalton's jaw, and she had taught me to make her stuffing at my own kitchen counter.

"I saw the video last night," she said. "All of it. I'm told it was very popular."

"It wasn't mine."

"The one on the stage was." She lifted her chin. "You humiliated my son in front of the families he works for."

"He did that himself. I just turned on the lights."

She held out the envelope.

"This is a cheque for twenty-five thousand dollars."

I didn't take it.

"It's more than he took," she said. "I did the arithmetic. Call it the money back and something for your trouble."

"For my trouble."

"For the cost of this. The lawyers, the move. The baby."