After Ninety-Nine Lies, My Husband Finally Told Me the Truth novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: A Year

Anders's POV

The yard emptied slowly, family by family.

People shook my hand, and some did not.

The foreman put his big palm on my shoulder and left it there a moment.

My mother stood by the new hull with her pearls in her fist, and did not look up when I passed.

I let her be.

Cora was sitting on an overturned crate by the shed door with her hand on her coat.

She was pale, and she had not cried, and I knew better than to guess what that meant.

I stopped three feet away.

"You said you'd ask me nothing," she said.

"I didn't."

"You were about to."

"I wanted to ask what you want." I kept my hands where she could see them. "Not what I'm allowed. What you want."

She studied me for a while.

The sun had come out, and it lit the sawdust that drifted in the doorway.

"I don't know yet," she said. "I want to see you do it."

"Do what?"

"All of it. For a year. I want to watch you tell me when you're afraid, and tell me when I've hurt you, and ask me before you decide anything for me. I want to watch you not make a plan I'm not in." She lifted her chin. "A year, Anders. Not a speech. A year."

I should have said something careful.

"Yes," I said.

"You didn't think about it."

"I've been thinking about it for fourteen months. Yes."

She nodded once, and her eyes went bright and she looked away at the water.

"You're still sleeping in the truck," she said.

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