A Happy Family Without Me novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Porch

Torsten's POV

I had Garner's wrist in my hand, and for two seconds I wanted very much to break it.

He pulled against me, and he was not weak.

"Let go of me," he said. "Let go. That's my wife."

"Not tonight," I said.

Two men from the hotel's security came up the steps at a run.

I opened my hand, and they took him by the arms.

Garner turned his head and looked at Fenella over the guards' shoulders.

She was standing very straight, with her empty hand still held out.

"Poppy," Garner said. "Tell Poppy I'm sorry. Tell her I love her."

"Tell her yourself," Fenella said. "Tomorrow, at your mother's."

They walked him down the side steps and out through a service door.

The gray man put a hand under her elbow and said something I didn't catch.

Then the room was on its feet again, and this time they were clapping for her.

She flinched at the sound.

I got to her through the crowd and said, "Out."

She nodded.

I put my jacket over her shoulders and walked her through the lobby, past the people with their phones up.

Maeve had Poppy at her apartment, twenty minutes away.

Poppy came to the door in her pajamas and her yellow rain boots.

She looked at her mother's dress, and her mother's face.

"Did you say it?" Poppy asked.

"I said it."

"Was it scary?"

"A little."

"Did Daddy cry?"

Fenella knelt on the hall carpet in her silk dress and pulled her in.

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