Her Husband's Favorite Guest novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Answer Is No

"I'm not sending my husband to prison from a stage," I told Margo.

I repeated it into the microphone, because everyone was still listening.

"The people who bought my songs on a forged page are going to hear from me. Brandon is going to pay back every dollar, out of his own pocket, for as long as it takes. And I will tell the truth to anyone who asks me."

Behind me, two security men had taken Piper by the arms.

She had stopped screaming and was only crying now, without sound.

My aunt walked out behind them with her purse held to her chest, and did not look back at the hall.

I put the folder under my arm and went down the steps.

On Friday morning I let myself into the house on Elm Street for the first time in a week.

Gideon waited in the truck at the curb.

He had offered to come in, and I had said this one was mine.

The front hall smelled of coffee and cardboard.

There were boxes along the wall, labeled in Brandon's ugly handwriting: records, jackets, guitar strings.

He was in the kitchen, at the table where we had eaten five years of Sunday breakfasts, with a pen in his hand.

He stood up when I came in.

"I wanted to be done before you got here," he said. "I didn't make it."

"I see that."

"The papers are there." He nodded at a blue folder on the table. "My lawyer drew them up at midnight. I didn't contest anything. The house, the royalties on the old catalogue, the rights. Everything you wrote goes back to you, and I've signed it."

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