I Was Done Begging novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Pool House

The gate opened, but not for me.

A black car rolled out of the drive carrying the last of the christening guests, and every window came down as it passed me standing in the street.

I walked through the open gate behind it with my cane.

On the lawn stood Julien's mother in a cream silk dress, with her arms folded.

Julien stood beside her.

Simone stood a step behind them with the baby on her shoulder.

Fifteen or twenty guests were still on the drive, waiting for their cars.

None of them were in a hurry.

"You went somewhere," my mother-in-law said. "Where?"

"For a walk."

"On a cane? With what money?"

I said nothing.

She turned to the guests and raised her voice, so the valets could hear too.

"Three years," she said. "Three years we kept her in the best private room in the city, with a nurse around the clock, on our money. It was charity, and I won't apologize for saying so."

A woman near the fountain lifted her phone.

"Now she wakes up and goes wandering. She wants everything back and gives nothing."

"Mother," Julien said, not very hard.

"I'm only telling the truth."

I looked at Julien.

He looked at the grass.

I understood that he had planned all of it, the suitcases and the audience, and that he meant to let his mother do the cruel part so his own hands stayed clean.

In the other life I had screamed here.

I had thrown a suitcase at the house and told every guest on that drive what Julien was.

It had given his mother exactly what she wanted.

I took a breath and let it out.

"You're right," I said. "You paid for a nurse, and I'm grateful."

Her face went still.

"I'll take whatever you'll give me. I'm in no position to ask for more."

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