Cold Marriage, Burning Regret novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: What Eleanor Asked
Marcella's POV
Eleanor received us in her sitting room at nine the next morning, with a pot of tea and the blinds half drawn.
She looked at Scott, and then at me, and then at the brown envelope in my hand.
"You came together," she said. "That's either very good news or very bad."
"Sit down, Grandmother," Scott said.
"I'll stand. I've been told to sit by better men than you."
She did not stand for long.
Her cane shook once on the rug, and she lowered herself into the armchair by the window.
"Tell her," I said to Scott.
"Marcella."
"You said you'd say it yourself. I'm only here to hand over the page."
He turned to Eleanor.
He did not sit either.
"You have the oncologist's page," he said. "I won't make you hear it read twice."
"I do have it."
"Then you know nothing in it has changed." His voice stayed level, which I knew by now was the loudest thing about him. "Not in eleven years, and not on any test since."
Nobody spoke.
A clock ticked on the mantel.
"And the trust," Eleanor said slowly.
"I knew it couldn't be met when I proposed to her."
"You asked her to give you a child."
"I asked her to take the blame for not giving me one."
I put the envelope on the little table between them.
Eleanor did not look at it.
She looked at her grandson for a long time, and her face did something I had seen only once, on the night I told her she needed a new valve.
Then she got up, took her cane, and walked out into the hall.
"Eleanor," I said.
"Come out here, Scott."
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