They Thought I Was Asleep, So I Let Them Keep Lying novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Four Months

Kate's POV

Cal played it again.

I stood in the doorway of the garage apartment and heard my mother's voice come out of a phone, laughing at her own doctor.

Four months.

When it ended, I held out my hand, and Cal put the phone in it.

I played it a third time, by myself, all the way to the seatbelt.

Neither of them said anything.

Devin had come back from his run, and he stood behind me in the yard, soaked with sweat, breathing hard.

"You knew," I said.

"Kate," Cal said.

"Four months."

"She made us swear."

"I know she made you swear. I can hear her making you." I turned the phone over in my hand. "You watched her die, a little every week, and you carried her groceries."

"Yes."

"You let me find out from a hospice nurse who said, 'You must be the daughter.'"

Cal's face crumpled.

He didn't try to speak.

"I had nine days," I said. "I came in from a night shift in my scrubs, and I held her hand, and she said, 'You came fast.' She said that. 'You came fast.'"

My voice shook, and I let it.

"I would have been here the day she got the news. I would have taken every one of those four months. I would have quit that job in a minute, and she knew it, and she decided it for me."

"She was protecting you," Devin said quietly.

"She wasn't asking me."

"No."

"And you let her. Both of you. You made that decision with her, every single day, and then you let me kiss you on that couch."

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