He Sent Me Away for Three Years. Now My Divorce Has Him Panicking. novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Three Hours in the Car

"We're fine," I called back. "Just finding the last box."

I put both green notebooks inside my blazer, and Ruby shut the drawer with her hip.

Belinda was leaning in the study doorway when we came out.

She looked at the drawer, then at me, and her smile didn't move.

"Dalton keeps that one locked," she said. "He's so private about his work."

"I noticed," I said.

"Take whatever helps you, Monica. Truly."

She stepped aside to let us pass, and she said it so warmly that Ruby was halfway down the elevator before she found her voice.

"I want to hit her with a clipboard," Ruby said.

"Get in line."

My mother lived in a narrow yellow house in Evanston with a porch swing she had been threatening to repair since I was twelve.

She opened the door in her robe with her reading glasses on their cord and a mug of tea in her hand.

"There she is," Connie said. "The woman on the television."

"Mom, you're supposed to be resting."

"I rested for three weeks. I watched you serve your husband on my phone about fourteen times." She pulled me in with her free arm. "Ruby, honey, come in, you look like you haven't eaten since Tuesday."

"Since Monday," Ruby said.

We sat in the kitchen.

My mother put out cold chicken, a bowl of pickles and half a coffee cake, and she did not ask me a single question until we were all holding a fork.

"So," she said. "Was it the dog or the boy that did it?"

"Mom."

"I'm asking which one pushed you over the edge."

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