They Called Me Barren. They Picked the Wrong Wife novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Two Plates

Callum's POV

My mother's house on Birch Street smelled of lemon polish and nothing else.

I had not been inside it in five years, and nothing had moved.

The same plastic runner lay down the hall, and the same photograph of my father hung over the stairs, and the grandfather clock still ran four minutes fast.

She was in the kitchen in her cream cardigan with the table set for two.

There was a roast chicken on a platter, and a bowl of green beans, and a loaf of bread under a cloth.

"I knew you'd come," she said. "Sit, dear, before it gets cold."

I stayed in the doorway.

"Who's the second plate for, Mom?"

"You, of course."

"I told nobody I was coming."

"A mother knows."

It was the same voice she had used on a hundred Sundays, and I felt it work on me even now.

I sat down because my knees wanted me to, and she served the chicken onto my plate.

I did not eat it.

"You've lost weight," she said.

"Mom."

"That woman isn't feeding you."

"Her name's Maggie."

"I know what her name is." She set down the serving spoon. "I picked it."

The clock ticked.

In the whole house I could hear nothing else, no radio, no television, no phone.

Nobody had called her in a week.

"Callum, I want to say something, and I want you to listen to all of it." She folded her hands. "I did what I did because Neil was sick. Not sick in his body. Sick in his heart. A boy who learns at nineteen he can never be a father needs someone to take the weight."

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