Goodbye to the Love I Lost Eight Years Ago novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: On Her Knees

"Annie," Judith said from her knees. "I'm asking you one more time."

I looked down at the top of her silver head.

Eight years ago I had looked at the same head from a hospital bed.

"Get up," I said.

"Not until you hear me."

"Then say it from there."

She lifted her face.

Her eyes were red, and her lipstick had worn off at the edges.

"I have nothing," she said. "The trust is frozen. The lawyer won't take my calls. Courtney's mother won't let me into the hospital."

"That sounds hard."

"My son hasn't spoken to me since Saturday."

"I heard what you said in that hospital lobby," I said. "You called it the best money you ever spent."

"I was upset."

"It's on tape, Judith."

Across the street a neighbor held her phone higher.

My cousin stepped out beside me and said, to nobody, "Well, now."

"I need you to tell him I did it out of love," Judith said. "He'll listen to you. You're the only one he ever listened to."

"You want me to speak for you."

"I want you to be kind. You were always kind."

"I was twenty-one," I said. "I was kind because I was scared."

She put her palms together.

"I knelt to you once, and it worked," she said. "I'm kneeling again. Please."

"It worked because I believed you."

"You owe me this."

"I owe you nothing."

I said it quietly, and the whole street heard it.

Her face changed.

It had been soft, and then it was not.

"You think he loves you," she said, in a different voice. "He pities you. A sick girl in a green dress, and he feels guilty."

"Judith," my cousin said.

"Let her talk," I said.

"You'll be back in that bed by spring," Judith said. "I've seen it. You'll be alone, and he'll be at his daughter's school play, and you'll remember I told you."

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