I Died the Day My Husband's Girlfriend Did a Magic Trick novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Chosen

"Not today, sweetheart," Imogen said, and drew him in against her side. "Cora needs to rest."

Linus kept his eyes on the floor.

His fingers stayed curled in hers, and he did not look at me again.

I picked my cane up off the boards.

I walked down the nine steps and up the aisle with thirty people watching, and I did not cry until the hearse door was shut.

Abel didn't say anything.

He drove with one hand on the wheel and put the other on the seat between us, palm up.

I took it.

"He chose her," I said.

"He chose the hand that was holding his."

"It's the same thing."

"It isn't. Not at nine." He turned onto Cedar Street. "You saw his face when you said cocoa."

I had seen it, and it didn't help at all.

Hattie was waiting in the kitchen with her glasses on her head.

She took one look at me, put down her teacup, and said, "Good. You're angry. Come with me."

"Grandma, she's had a day."

"Then she'll want to use it."

She led us out the back door and across the yard to the old carriage house, where the hearses used to sleep.

Behind a stack of folding chairs, under a canvas sheet, stood a long wooden box painted gold and black.

The paint had cracked, and one brass corner had been mended with wire.

Hattie pulled the sheet away.

"Nine years I climbed into this, in Atlantic City," she said. "I want you in it tonight."

My stomach turned over.

"No."

"Yes, dear. On Saturday you'll be standing in front of four hundred people, and there will be a lid over you. You have to know what it feels like when nothing happens."

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