Eight Months Pregnant, My Husband Locked Me in a Freezing Cabin for His Ex on Christmas Eve novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: What Neil Owes

I opened Neil's envelope on the seventeenth of January, at Eli's kitchen table, with June asleep in a sling against my chest.

She had been out of the NICU for two days.

She weighed five pounds and eleven ounces, and she had a cry like a kettle.

The envelope held a sheaf of pages and a cashier's check.

I read them slowly, with a cup of tea going cold at my elbow.

Neil had signed a consent to an uncontested divorce.

He had signed away his half of the house on Spruce Lane.

He had signed over his shares in Garver Lodging.

A letter said he had resigned from every title his mother had ever pinned on him.

At the bottom was a note in his block handwriting.

*The check is from the sale of my truck and my father's watch. I know it doesn't cover anything. It's for the rescue squad's ambulance. Eli will say no. Please make him say yes.*

I looked up.

Eli had come in from the porch, stamping snow off his boots.

"What is it?" he said.

I slid the check across the table.

He read the amount. Then he read the note.

"No," he said.

"Eli."

"I'm not taking that man's father's watch."

"It isn't the watch. It's the transmission."

"I don't want his money."

"It isn't his money. It's June's father paying for the people who delivered her."

He folded his arms.

"That's not fair," he said.

"No. It's very effective."

He stared at me for a long moment, and the tips of his ears went red above the beard.

"Fine," he said. "But I'm putting your name on the plaque."

I laughed so hard that June woke and screamed.

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