The Diary of an Unloved Wife novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Woodside

I didn't answer right away.

I turned back through the nine pages, with my arm curled round the notebook the way I used to at school.

Malachy kept looking at the window.

He was holding so still he was practically holding his breath.

I found the line I wanted.

I put my left hand over the top half of the page and my right hand over the bottom.

Only one line showed between my fingers.

"All right," I said. "One."

He looked down.

It said, "He gave me the window."

That was all.

He read it, and I watched his ears go red, the way they had at his mother's table in January.

He didn't say anything for a second.

Then he reached over my shoulder and closed the green notebook, gently, with one finger.

"Never again," he said, and his voice wasn't quite right. "That's my one."

On Sunday we went to Woodside.

The yellow house was louder than ever.

The middle sister's youngest had learned to walk and was doing it everywhere, at speed, into furniture.

Malachy's mother met me in the hall and took my face in both her hands.

"You're still too thin," she said. "But better."

She put me straight to work in the kitchen.

She was making the soda bread, and she'd decided I was going to learn it.

"You don't knead it," she said. "You never knead it. Who taught you to knead?"

"Nobody taught me anything. I've never made bread."

"Then you've got nothing to unlearn. Good."

The eldest sister leaned in the doorway with a glass of wine and watched me cut a cross into the top.

"Deeper," she said. "Let the fairies out."

"That's not a real thing," said the youngest from the table.

"It's a real thing in this house."

The roast was beef again, and there was enough of it for a parish.

I sat between the youngest sister and Malachy's mother.

Nobody asked me about Boston.

The youngest opened her mouth once, and her mother put a slice of beef on her plate without looking.

← Chapter 22 · All chapters · Chapter 24 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend