They Gave The Good Match To Her And A Replacement To Me novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Crash

Diane's name had sat at the bottom of that email all night, and by afternoon I had stopped guessing.

The doctor wanted me there on Friday, and my mother had gone behind my back to make sure I came.

I was going.

But I was not walking into that room without knowing who I was walking in beside.

So I took him down to the dock, with a coffee in each hand and my feet bare on cold boards, and asked him about the crash.

The tide was out, and the stairs were dry.

"Rule four," he said.

"I know."

"You were good about it for a week."

"I'm not asking because of a rule. I'm asking because I want to know who you are."

He looked at the water for a long time.

"It was Gilbert's birthday," he said at last. "Two years ago in October. We were coming home from a dinner at the club."

"Who was driving?"

"Gilbert."

He said it flatly, and the word sat between us.

"He'd had eight drinks. I asked for the keys at the car park and he laughed and told me I wasn't his father." Ethan turned his cane over in his hand. "I got in anyway. I thought I could talk him down on the road."

"What happened?"

"He took the bend at the old mill too fast. We hit the stone wall on my side."

I put my coffee down on the bench.

"My leg went through the door," he said. "They had to cut me out. I was in hospital for five weeks. He had a split lip."

"And then?"

"My father came to my bed on the second day with a lawyer. He said Gilbert was about to be engaged to an Ashcroft. He said a drunk-driving charge would end it, and the family's name with it. He said my mother was dying, and that if the family fell apart, her nurses would go."

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