Over Before She Loved Me novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: The Back of the Card

The baby was six weeks old on the Sunday Joelle cooked dinner in the townhouse kitchen for the first time.

She had moved in the week after the hospital.

She had asked herself first, out loud, in the mirror.

Then she had asked Dustin, and he had said yes so fast he dropped the box he was carrying.

The kitchen smelled of roast chicken.

Maureen stood at the stove giving orders.

Dolores stood at the sink with her sleeves rolled and a dish towel over her shoulder.

She had dried the same plate for two minutes.

The baby was awake in the bouncer by her feet, and Dolores could not stop looking at her.

"She's going to wear a hole in that plate," Maureen said.

"She's looking at me."

"She's looking at the light."

"She's looking at me."

Joelle laughed from the table, where she sat with a postcard in her hand.

It was from Southwark, from Kendra, with a photograph of a church on the front.

The back said: The vicar is thrilled I was almost a scandal. Kiss the baby. Make him wait. K.

"Did you make him wait?" Maureen asked without turning around.

"Seven months."

"That's not nothing."

"That's very nearly nothing, Mom."

Dustin came in from the garden with a bag of lemons Maureen had sent him for.

He kissed the top of Joelle's head on his way past, and she felt it all the way down her spine.

"Dinner in ten," he said.

"Dinner in ten," Maureen agreed.

They ate at the big table in the dining room with the good plates.

Dolores cut her chicken into small neat pieces.

Maureen told the tater tot story again, with new details.

Dustin laughed in the right places, and under the table his foot rested against Joelle's.

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