My Husband, My Sister: A Secret Betrayal novel · Chapter 22 of 32
Chapter 22: Paid Leave
Claire was gone before the kettle boiled.
She took the pink folder, left the cookies, and walked out of Winnie's front door without looking back.
"She's going to do something," Daniel said.
"Of course she is," Winnie said, and poured the tea anyway.
It took her four hours.
At two in the afternoon my phone rang, and it was Daniel's principal's office, asking me to come to the middle school.
I drove the Buick, and I took the stairs two at a time.
The principal's office had a window onto the front hall.
Through it I could see a line of eighth-graders waiting outside the nurse's door, pretending not to look.
Daniel sat in a plastic chair with his hands between his knees.
The principal, a heavyset man with a gray mustache, stood behind his desk.
And in the other chair, with her ankles crossed and the pink folder in her lap, sat Claire.
"Mrs. Pierce," the principal said. "Thank you for coming. Please sit."
"I'll stand."
"There has been a complaint."
"From her."
"From a concerned family member." He cleared his throat. "She has provided a number of documents. Money transferred monthly from Mr. Pierce to her for three years. A concern that his wife has been, in her words, managed. Statements from your son."
"My son is seven."
"She says Teddy has said troubling things at home."
"Teddy said she wrote them in a notebook."
Claire dabbed her eye.
"I didn't want it to come to this," she said. "I begged Daniel to get help."
"She is lying," I said. "To your face."
"That may be," the principal said, and I saw that he did believe me, a little, and that it did not matter. "But I have a complaint about a teacher's treatment of a woman with a documented psychiatric history, and a parent petition. District policy leaves me one choice."
Keep reading free with an account. Start My Husband, My Sister: A Secret Betrayal from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.
← Chapter 21 · All chapters · Chapter 23 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend