A Secret in Her Father's House, A Pregnancy Neither Can Hide novel · Chapter 8 of 24
Chapter 8: Say It Back
Sigrid Sundberg left a casserole on the front porch the next morning with a note on foil.
Eat something. Both of you. R.
Alana stood on the step in her bare feet and read it four times.
She carried the dish into the kitchen and set it down in front of Henrik, who was reading the tide tables.
"Sigrid knows."
"Sigrid has known since the pie."
"You never said."
"You never asked." He turned a page. "She's been my neighbor for twenty-two years, and she has never repeated a single thing. Not when Janice left. Not when my brother died."
"She saw us."
"She saw a window."
"She was holding a hose, Henrik."
"She also gave me a casserole." He put the paper down. "I'd take it as a vote of confidence."
She sat at the table and put her face in her hands.
He laughed, a short low sound that she had not heard in years.
She looked up.
She had missed that laugh so much that it hurt to hear it.
By the third week of September she had stopped pretending any of it would end.
On the Thursday before her birthday they ate leftover casserole at the kitchen table.
Henrik put down his fork.
"Your mother arrives Saturday week. She'll want the guest room."
"She can have it."
"Then you sleep in my bed, or you sleep in the study."
"The study."
"And while she's here, I don't touch you." He said it flatly. "Not once. Not in the hall, not in the dark, not when she's asleep."
Alana put down her own fork.
"Not once?"
"Not once."
"Then I want something now."
"Say what you want."
"I want a shower." She stood up. "With you. And I want to do what I want, and you don't say anything unless I ask."
His eyes went dark.
"You're giving me orders."
"I'm making a request. I'm saying it out loud, as you asked."
"You're throwing it back at me."
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