A Decade For Nothing novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: My Terms

Lydia woke at twenty to four, out of habit, and lay very still in the dark.

I knew she was awake because she had stopped breathing slowly.

"You don't have to go," I said. "I called the farmer last night. Joel did, actually. He said you have a day off and a boyfriend."

"Is that what I have?"

"It's what Joel said."

She turned her head on my arm, and then her eyes went to the nightstand.

The ring box sat in a square of gray light from the window.

She didn't say anything.

I didn't either.

After a while she put her cold nose into my shoulder.

"Feed me first," she said. "Then ask me whatever you're going to ask me."

"I'm not asking today."

"You're not?"

"I have terms," I said.

She laughed so hard the bed shook.

On the way out I slid the ring box into my pocket, and she watched me do it.

Nan had set the table for three by the time we got to her kitchen at eight, with the good plates and the cracked blue pitcher of orange juice.

Joel sat at the end of the table with a plate of bacon and a face of innocent joy.

"Don't look at me," he said. "I did nothing."

"He did everything," said Nan.

She looked at Lydia, up and down, from her wet hair to her boots.

"Sit."

Lydia sat.

Nan put a plate of eggs in front of her and stood with her good hand on the chair back.

"I'm going to say this once," she said. "You hurt my boy in front of a hundred and forty people."

"Yes, ma'am."

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