Skipped by the Altar, Taken by His Uncle novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: The Letter
I wrote it down word for word.
"November fourth. Seven a.m. If I win."
Then I underlined "if" twice, and looked up at him.
"Thank you, Mr. Chairman," I said. "That's the headline."
His smile slipped, just at one corner.
Earl took my arm again, and we walked back down through the yard.
The crews hadn't moved.
At the bottom of the stairs Earl stopped and looked at them for a long minute.
"They voted me out," he said. "I'm still the one who hired every one of you. Go to work."
They went to work.
Issue nine went out at four that afternoon.
DEMOLITION DAY: NOVEMBER 4, 7 A.M.
Under it, Blaine's quote, and under that, a photograph Connie had taken through the boardroom window from the gravel lot. Blaine in the head chair, the gray suit beside him, Earl at the side with his hands folded on his cane.
By Sunday we had four thousand subscribers.
On Monday morning Blaine's new ad ran during the six o'clock news.
Reuben and Earl and I watched it standing up in the kitchen, holding our coffee.
It opened on a photo of me and Blaine at the floodwall, the one from the fake wedding announcement.
Then a woman's voice, soft and young, began to read.
"Blaine. I'm twenty-five and I want three babies with you. I want the first one to have your laugh. I want to name a girl after my father, even though his name is terrible for a girl."
I put my coffee down on the counter very carefully.
I'd written that at his condo at two in the morning, after his cousin's baby shower.
I'd saved it in a folder called PERSONAL.
I'd never sent it. I'd read it to him once, out loud, in bed.
He'd said, "Cute," and gone to sleep.
"I'll love you on the days you're boring and the days you're mean," the woman's voice read. "I'll love you until we're old and slow and nobody remembers the flood."
White text on black.
"She wrote this to Blaine Eckert. Four years later, she married his uncle in three days. Ask yourself why."
PAID FOR BY ECKERT FOR HALBROOK.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Skipped by the Altar, Taken by His Uncle are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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