We Called It Therapy After Dark novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: Not an Initial
Anja's POV
The eleven notebooks sat in a row on Ebba's kitchen table, and I could not stop touching the covers.
Roan had carried the shoebox in from the truck at noon and set it down gently on the table.
"They're yours," he said. "Do what you want with them."
My phone rang before I could answer.
It was a number in New York.
"Ms. Dahlquist? This is an editor at a publishing house. I watched the clip of Thursday night four times."
"I'm sorry, which clip?"
"The one where six hundred people say your sentences back to you. It has nine million views."
I sat down.
"Your husband's publisher has dropped his book as of this morning," she said. "They're calling it a rights problem. I'd like to talk about the real one."
"The real one is eleven notebooks on my grandmother's table."
"Would you consider publishing them?"
"Under whose name?"
"That's what I'm asking you."
Ebba set a cup of coffee at my elbow and looked at me over her glasses.
"Mine," I said. "Anja Dahlquist, on the cover. Not an initial."
"Done."
"And the first page says: These are mine, and some of them are his."
"Whose?"
"A doctor's," I said, and Roan put his hand over his eyes.
"Can I quote you?" the editor said.
"Yes. I want him to read it in print."
When I hung up, nobody spoke.
"Well," Ebba said. "The bridge club will want signed copies."
"One of them threw a dinner roll at him."
"She'll want two."
Roan lowered his hand.
"A real book," he said. "With your name."
"And your sentences."
"Mine are a pleasure to give away."
That afternoon the doorbell rang, and nobody was there.
There was an envelope on the mat with my name on it in Siri's handwriting, held down by a stone from the lakeshore.
Inside was a cashier's check for fourteen thousand dollars.
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