They Called Me Barren. They Picked the Wrong Wife novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Right Side of the Room

Callum's POV

I opened the front door before my mother could ring the bell.

I had pulled on my jeans and yesterday's flannel, and I had not buttoned it.

Lorraine looked at the shirt and at my bare feet on Maggie's floor.

She did not look surprised.

"Well," she said. "Of course."

"Mom."

"I brought a breakfast casserole. It's hot." She held it out, and when I didn't take it, she set it on the porch rail. "I came to give Margaret a chance to behave sensibly before ten o'clock."

"She's upstairs. She'll behave however she wants."

"Callum, listen to me." Her voice dropped into the one she used on the pastor, soft and reasonable. "She took a vow in front of God. That girl keeps what she's given. When Neil gets down on his knee this morning, she'll do what she's always done."

I had the door in my hand.

I thought: she's right.

Against five years of Maggie letting that woman touch her arm, I had one night.

I did not know which weighed more.

"You're doing what you do," I said. "You find the thing I'm afraid of."

"I'm telling you who you're sleeping with."

"Go home, Mom."

"The shop at ten. Stand on the right side of the room." She patted my cheek, once, and went down the walk.

I closed the door and leaned my forehead on it.

Maggie was on the stairs in my sweater.

"I heard," she said.

"Then you know what she said."

"I know what she wants you to believe." She came down two steps. "Go to the shop. Set up the machine. I'll be there at nine with Bev and Courtney."

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