The Graduation Trap novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Terms

"Then what was in the cup?" I said.

"I don't know."

"You don't know."

"I was never given the cup." Sullivan straightened up. "I was given a girl on a bed who couldn't hold her head."

I stared at the thumbprint on my page.

"I need rules," I said.

"For what?"

"For you. I'm going to find out what happened to me, and you were there, so you're useful. That's all you are. You don't touch me, you don't take my side because you think you owe me, and you tell me everything even when it makes me hate you."

"That's three rules."

"I'm a music teacher. I count in threes."

He nodded slowly.

"I have one," he said. "When you know, you say it to her face. Where she can hear."

"Agreed."

He held out his hand, and I took it, and neither of us said that he had already held it once.

On Sunday I went to the Hollis Country Club in my best gray dress.

The Archibald Hospital Auxiliary held its spring luncheon there every year, and Cynthia had chaired it for twenty.

Forty women sat at round tables under the glass ceiling, with chicken salad and iced tea.

I walked in with an envelope and stopped at the head table.

Cynthia looked up from her fork.

"Joanna," she said. "You're late for the apology."

"I'm not here to apologize."

The chatter nearby went quiet.

"I'm here about the note," I said. "My mother's hospital bill was thirty-eight thousand dollars. You paid it. I want to pay it back."

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