The Secret That Broke Us novel · Chapter 20 of 32

Chapter 20: At the Front Desk

I decided to meet her on my own ground.

At ten the next morning I walked into the county building with the day supervisor beside me.

Anders was at Lena's.

I wore my county polo, the one that had never quite closed over my belly, and it hung loose now.

The lobby had a glass window, a deputy at a desk, and a row of orange chairs.

Behind the inner door, forty feet away, the dispatch floor was supposed to be working.

I heard the door open an inch.

Then another inch.

Someone had propped it with a chair.

Kristin came in at 10:20.

She had done her hair.

She wore a soft cream sweater and no coat.

She looked thin and pale and lovely, a woman who had been through something.

I thought of every birthday card.

"June," she said, and her eyes filled right on schedule. "Thank God. I didn't think you'd see me."

"I'm here."

"I've been away, getting well." She pressed a hand to her chest. "The doctors say it was postpartum. I wasn't myself."

"You weren't."

"I'm not asking you to forgive me."

She turned to the supervisor, to the deputy, to the open door.

"I'm asking for my daughter. I carried her. I'm her mother."

Nobody answered.

She went on, a little louder.

"Nate can't take care of her. He lost his job, he sleeps in his car, and his mother is sixty-eight."

"She's with her father," I said.

"He's a liar."

"Yes."

That stopped her.

"He's a liar," I said. "He lied to me."

I let that sit.

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