They Excluded Me From the Family, So I Built a New One novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Back Row

Desmond signed everything on Monday morning, in the attorney's conference room, with his own pen.

I had thought I would want to watch.

I found I preferred to look at the river.

"Last page," the attorney said.

He initialed it and slid the stack across.

She checked each tab, counted the pages twice, and nodded.

"Mr. Lockridge, the statement, the repayment and the assignment are all in order. The divorce will be final in ninety days, as the court sets it."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. I charge by the hour."

He gave a small, wrecked laugh, the first I'd heard from him in a week.

The loan officer sat at the end of the table with a folder.

He took out a single sheet and passed it to me.

It was a letter on the bank's paper, three paragraphs long.

The consent signed in April was withdrawn.

My house in Cambridge was released from any claim.

I read it twice.

Then I put it in my bag, next to the receipts.

"There's something else," the loan officer said. "Mrs. Pierce came into our Portland branch an hour ago."

I looked at the attorney.

She looked at her hands, but one corner of her mouth moved.

"She walked in with a lawyer," he said, "and a duffel bag. She put sixty-one thousand four hundred dollars on my colleague's desk, in cash. She said she wanted to return the proceeds of the boats."

"Why?" Desmond said.

"Her lawyer is trying to keep her out of court. The money doesn't make her innocent, but it does make her a defendant who paid back."

"And Carl?"

"Mr. Pierce signed a statement on Friday night. Everything. The yard, the sales, the Portland lease." The loan officer closed the folder. "He's cooperating. He asked me to tell you he's sorry."

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