The Divorce He Asked For, The Empire I Took Away novel · Chapter 13 of 32

Chapter 13: Coralee

I didn't hang up.

I sat up in bed in the dark with my boots still on.

"Put what on me, Cora?"

"Everything." She was crying so hard the words came apart. "The tanker. The juice. All of it. If anybody asks, it was you."

"I wasn't there. I don't work there."

"You did when it came. August twenty-fifth. You were still on the payroll till the twenty-first, and he's got it all written up different." She hiccuped again. "Lee, I'm in so much trouble."

"Where are you?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Are you driving home?"

A pause.

"No."

"Give the bartender your keys. Right now. I want to hear you do it."

I heard her do it.

Then I heard her say, "Thanks, babe," to somebody, and the line went dead.

At seven the next morning the white convertible came up my drive.

It came slow this time.

Coralee got out in yesterday's clothes, a wrinkled silk blouse and big sunglasses.

No coffee.

She stopped at the bottom of the porch steps, where I'd sent her the last time, and stayed there.

The dog lifted his head off the boards and looked at her.

Winona was at the kitchen window with her mug, not even pretending to wash anything.

"Can I say it from here?" Coralee said.

"Say what?"

She took off the sunglasses.

Her eyes were swollen almost shut.

For one second she was eleven again, crying on the bus because a boy had pulled her ponytail.

I'd punched him for her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "For Cabo. For the picture. For the party. For all of it."

"Okay."

"That's it? Okay?"

"You said it. I heard it."

She twisted her bangles around her wrist.

"I want to fix it, Lee. I'll testify. At the auction, to the newspaper, to a judge, anywhere. I'll tell them about the tanker."

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