They Gave The Good Match To Her And A Replacement To Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Terms

Diane and Richard turn up at Molly's walk-up in front of the neighbours, Molly takes Ethan's offer, and he says his father wants her at lunch with Gilbert.

On Sunday morning my biological mother knocked on my door, and she did it in front of my neighbours.

I lived on the third floor above a laundromat.

The stairwell smelled like dryer sheets and the woman from 2B was already on the landing, holding a laundry basket she did not need.

Diane stood in my doorway in a cream coat with Richard behind her.

She held both my hands before I could stop her.

"Darling, you've had a shock," she said. "Last night was my fault. I should have prepared you."

"You should have asked me."

"Of course. I see that now."

Her voice was warm and low and carried perfectly down the stairs.

"Come home, and we'll talk about it properly. Sylvie cried all night."

"Sylvie was kind to me," I said. "That's why I'm angry. Not at her."

Richard cleared his throat.

"Molly, your mother has done a lot for you in three weeks."

"She announced a marriage to three hundred people."

"It's a good family."

"Then Sylvie can have both of them."

The woman from 2B put her basket down.

Diane's hands tightened on mine, just once, and her smile did not change.

She stepped inside and shut the door behind her, and Richard stayed in the hall with the neighbours looking at him.

In my kitchen she let go.

She looked at the two chairs, the secondhand table, and the cracked blue mixing bowl my mother had owned for thirty years.

"This is what you'd choose," she said.

"It's mine."

"You could have a house. A name. A husband whose family will never let you want for anything."

"A husband who was told to stay home."

She took an envelope out of her handbag and set it on my table.

"For your trouble. Take it, and think."

It was thick.

I did not touch it.

"Monday at nine," she said. "The doctor will see you. It's only a check-up, a family courtesy."

"I'm not going."

"Of course you are, darling. You're my daughter."

She kissed my cheek and left.

I heard her in the stairwell telling the woman from 2B that I was exhausted and she was so grateful for everyone's patience.

I stood there until the engine of her car faded.

Then I put the envelope in the drawer with the takeout menus and the spare keys.

At ten the buzzer rang.

A courier handed me a stiff cream folder.

Inside were four pages and a pen with a sticky note: Read before signing. E.L.

Ethan had typed it himself.

He wrote in short, flat sentences.

One year, from signing. Separate bedrooms. No touching except in front of family. Her own money and her own job. No questions about the crash. Either of us may end it with thirty days' notice.

At the bottom was a line in his handwriting.

"If you decide no, I'll still have a driver take you wherever you want to go. This doesn't expire because you made me wait."

I read it three times at my mother's table.

Then I took my own pen and added a paragraph under his signature.

I wrote that I would never be asked to see the Ashcroft family doctor.

I wrote that he would never lie to me, even by leaving something out.

I wrote that at the end of the year I would leave with nothing, and owe nothing.

I signed it.

I called the number on the folder.

He answered on the first ring.

"Dudley."

"I added terms."

"I saw. You can't have the second one."

"Why not?"

"I'll lie to you the first time it's useful. I'd rather you hear that now." He paused. "I'll take the first and the third."

"Fine. But tell me when you do it."

"Done," he said.

Neither of us spoke for a moment.

"My father wants to meet you at lunch," Ethan said. "Today, at the house."

"Is that a problem?"

"Gilbert's coming," he said. "And so is your sister."

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