He Gave Her My Home, So I Took Back My Life novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Kitchen Floor

Nora refuses the hotel and sleeps in the kitchen while Graham locks the stairs; in the morning Delphine's little boy calls Graham Dad and nobody corrects him.

I did not go to the Harbor Inn.

I stood in the front hall at ten o'clock with my keys in my hand while Graham took them out of my fingers, one at a time.

"Be reasonable," he said. "You're upset. Sleep somewhere quiet and we'll talk in the morning."

"I'm sleeping in my house."

"Nora."

"I can sleep on the floor if you want me to."

He looked at me for a while.

Then he unhooked my house key from the ring and put it in his pocket.

"The main wing is Delphine's now," he said. "The kitchen's yours until we sort this out. I'm not going to fight you in front of the baby."

He went upstairs.

I heard a bolt slide at the top of the staircase.

My grandmother's staircase had never had a bolt.

I stood in the hall and listened to my own house shut me out.

Then I went into the kitchen, because there was nowhere else on the ground floor with a door that closed.

It had a stove, a window seat, a table with six chairs and the copper pots Gran hung over it in 1994.

I sat on the window seat in my work blazer and did not cry, because someone might hear.

I called the county registry's after-hours line and got a recording.

I called my friend from the school library instead, and she answered on the second ring.

"Say it slow," she said.

I said it slow.

"Don't sign anything," she said. "Don't tear anything up. Don't let him see you scared. Tomorrow I'll look at what's been filed."

"He keeps saying I signed it."

"People sign things, Nora. That doesn't mean they knew what it was."

There was a knock at the kitchen door at eleven.

I opened it.

Delphine stood in the dark hall in a cardigan with a quilt over her arm and a plate in her hands.

"I couldn't sleep," she said. "I thought you hadn't eaten."

It was crab puffs and half a roll of the good cheese, arranged on the blue plate with the chip in the rim.

"Delphine."

"I know." Her voice shook. "I know how this looks. I told him not to say it like that, I told him it should be private. I'm so sorry."

She set the plate on the table and the quilt on the window seat.

"Gran's quilt," I said.

"I found it in the cedar closet. I thought you'd want it. It's cold down here."

It was the second time that day she had been kind to me, and the second time I had no way to refuse it.

I hated how much that helped.

"Thank you," I said.

She hesitated at the door.

"He's under so much pressure," she said. "The campaign. His mother's old money. Rhys, still. Don't be too hard on him."

Then she went up, and I heard the bolt slide again.

I ate every crab puff.

I slept on the window seat under Gran's quilt with my shoes on.

Morning came with a small loud sound of feet.

"Nora! Nora! Are you sleeping in the kitchen?"

Teddy climbed onto the window seat and then onto me.

He is three, with dark curls and a gap between his front teeth, and he smelled like toothpaste and syrup.

"I'm having a campout," I said.

"Can I campout?"

"You can have breakfast first."

He thought about that and agreed.

Graham came into the kitchen in his running clothes.

He poured himself coffee and didn't look at me.

Delphine followed in her robe with her hair loose, and she lit the stove without a word.

I made pancakes.

It was the only thing I could think of that was mine to do.

Teddy sat at the table on two cookbooks, kicking his legs.

He saw Graham put down his mug and shouted across the kitchen: "Dad! Dad, Nora made the round ones!"

"Morning, buddy," Graham said.

He ruffled the curls without a pause.

Delphine did not turn around from the stove.

Neither of them said: he's your uncle, sweetheart.

Neither of them said anything at all.

Teddy dropped his spoon, and it rolled under the table.

I bent to get it.

Under the tablecloth, Graham's hand was closed around Delphine's.

Their fingers were laced together, and neither of them looked down.

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