The Wife They Burned novel · Chapter 20 of 32

Chapter 20: Statement

The boy from room seven saw me first.

He was sitting on his mother's lap in the front row, in a hospital blanket, with a fresh tank beside him.

His mother had come straight from her shift, still in her store vest.

He looked at the TV.

He looked at me in the doorway.

"That's wrong," he said loudly. "She's right there."

Every head in the room turned.

Then the room came apart.

The father from Maine knocked his chair over.

Two mothers were hugging me at once, and somebody was crying, and the teenage brothers were cheering.

The boy climbed down and towed his tank across the room to me.

He put his arms around my legs.

"You smell like a campfire," he said into my blanket.

"So do you."

"Abel carried me. He turned off my sidekick so it wouldn't explode."

"I saw."

"He said a bad word on the stairs."

"I bet he did."

Joy was in the next bay, in a wheelchair with her ankle in a splint.

She saw me and burst into tears and swore at me at the same time.

"You stupid, stupid girl," she sobbed. "You went back in."

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