The Baby Couldn't Tie Him, The Lie Did novel · Chapter 29 of 32

Chapter 29: December

"Mrs. Blair Thornton will be at our winter gala tomorrow night," Virginia told the cameras. "So this city can see for itself that the child is safe."

Then she thanked them and turned and went back up the steps.

The waiting room was looking at me now.

A woman with a sleeping toddler on her lap pulled him a little closer.

Nathan stepped in front of me and walked me out into the snow.

In the truck he didn't start the engine right away.

"Tomorrow night," he said. "She's putting Blair back in a bump. In front of the whole harbor."

"The big one," I said. "Front row, under the lights."

He looked at me.

Then he started the truck.

My mother had the door open before we reached the top of the stairs.

She'd seen it. The whole building had seen it.

I took the baby from her and sat down on the bed and fed her with my coat still on.

At nine the next morning, my phone rang.

"Ms. McCallum." Blair's father. "I watched the news last night."

"So did I."

"Then I went to the Front Street station at eleven o'clock and watched a video from a laundromat door." He was quiet for a second.

"My daughter sat herself down in the slush so they'd put you in handcuffs. And Virginia stood on a hospital's steps and told the whole city it was true."

I didn't say anything.

"I said I'd handle it my own way," he said. "This was my own way. It doesn't work."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying my toast is at nine-fifteen. There'll be two names on the door for you, and one for your mother. And when I've said my piece, the microphone is yours."

The lawyer came at eleven.

She sat at my mother's table in her good coat and listened to him on speaker while he said it again.

Then she hung up and looked at me over her glasses.

"Do you know what you're doing?"

"Yes."

"Then do it early. Before the dessert. People leave after the dessert."

Nathan called at noon.

"Come to the office," he said. "I've got something for you."

My mother had taken my one good dress down off the hook.

Dark green, with long sleeves. I'd worn it to Mitchell's first Northlight Christmas party, and I'd had to sit in the car.

She had pins in her mouth.

"Arms up," she said. "You've got a different shape now."

"Mom, I'm going to Dock Street."

"You're going to Dock Street in forty minutes. Arms up."

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