Regret is the Punishment novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: Nine Years
I answered him in the surgical waiting room at nine in the morning, while Darla was under the lights.
It had vinyl chairs and a bowl of wrapped mints nobody touched.
We were alone except for an old man asleep behind a newspaper.
"Where was I," I said. "You want it straight?"
"I want it straight."
"I was in a kitchen at eleven at night, with a plate under foil."
"You worked twenty-four on and forty-eight off. Except it was never forty-eight."
"You took the overtime."
"We needed it."
"We did. Then we didn't, and you kept taking it."
He didn't answer.
"I counted once," I said. "A dozen occasions in nine years you weren't there for."
"Mine, Darla's, your mother's. Four anniversaries. Darla's first steps."
He flinched.
"You were at a warehouse fire in Sandusky," I said. "I know why."
"I held the phone up so you could see her," I said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Regret is the Punishment are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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