He Left Me in the Snow for Her Labor, So I Delivered It novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Rule

I told him to come to the house after the meeting, and he came at noon with snow melting off his boots.

I'd put the soup in a pot on the stove, and I had not eaten any of it.

He stood in my kitchen doorway with his coat on, filling it.

"Take that off," I said.

"The coat?"

"All of it, eventually. Start with the coat."

He hung it over a chair.

The kitchen was yellow and old, with a deep white sink under a window and a long butcher-block counter that had come with the house.

Gray light fell across the counter, and across him.

"Say what you want to say," Roderick said. "I'll listen to anything."

"The roads have been open since Sunday morning."

"Yes," he said.

"You are still in my kitchen."

"I'm here because you told me to come."

"I wrote a rule," I said. "Until the roads open, we're two people in a storm. After that I'm Dr. Maldonado and you're Dr. Lyle, and we say good morning in the hall."

"I remember it."

"Say it back to me."

"You wrote it," he said slowly. "You wrote it so it wouldn't cost you anything."

"And I threw it at you in a truck, and you threw it back." I took a step. "It was the stupidest thing I've ever said, and I've said some things to Bram."

He didn't move.

"It's dead," I said. "I'm tearing it up. I want you in daylight. I want you at my table. I want to hear your key in my door when I've given you a key."

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