A Life Beyond Us novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Both

The ballroom went so quiet that I heard the kitchen doors swing.

A hundred faces turned from Darcy to me.

I did not look at Tom or Hugh.

I wanted to, badly, but if I looked at either of them I would ask permission with my eyes, and I was done asking.

"Go on," Darcy said, breathing hard. "Say it. The husband and the vet. Under your roof."

"All right."

I picked the microphone back up.

"Hugh Clemence has loved me since the fourth grade," I said. "He left town three years ago so I could be happy with Tom. Tom Poynter asked him to come home last week so I could finally choose with the whole truth in front of me."

A woman at the back made a small noise.

"I didn't choose one of them," I said. "They're both mine, and I'm both of theirs. We found that out this week, all three of us, at my kitchen table."

"That's disgusting," Darcy said.

"It isn't."

"It's filth! It's two men and a wife, and you're standing up there in a green dress telling a roomful of decent people, with the school board sitting right there..."

"Yes."

I said it flatly.

"Yes. Both. They're mine, and it's none of your business."

Darcy opened her mouth and nothing came out.

She had run out of stories.

At table one, the president of the school board lifted her glass of water and took a very slow sip.

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