My Fiancé Wants Me Back Too Bad The Only Thing Coming Back Is Your Regret novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Sunday Dinner

My father was waiting on the porch with the front door already open.

"There she is," Dad said, and came down the steps in his slippers to hug me.

He was a big man, and he hugged hard, with one hand on the back of my head.

It was how he had hugged me at my mother's funeral, and at every recital, and on the day I told him Declan was gone.

Under my left ribs, a strip of tape held a microphone the size of a shirt button.

I hugged him back and hated that part of me still wanted to.

"You're thin," he said. "Come in, I made the pot roast."

The old house in Dorchester smelled exactly as it always had, of onions and floor wax.

On the hall table lay my mail, held together with a rubber band, the way it had been every Sunday since I'd moved out.

Two bills and a library catalogue.

"Nothing interesting," Dad said, following my eyes. "I'm sorry, honey."

"It's all right."

"How was Bangor?"

"Cold." I sat in my old chair at the kitchen table. "And wasted. I'm sorry about the money, Dad."

"Stop that." He set a plate in front of me and stood behind my chair with both hands on my shoulders. "Four years I watched you wait by that phone. I'd have paid ten times that to give you an answer."

Outside, a van that said PLUMBING on the side was parked three houses down.

In it, Declan and Ray Linscott were listening to every word.

I picked up my fork.

"Dad, the investigator. How did he find the place?"

"Some network of his. Old records." He waved a hand. "I don't ask how, honey. I just write the check."

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