Betrayed by My Childhood Love novel · Chapter 8 of 32
Chapter 8: Family Visit
Gran put down her shrimp bucket very slowly.
She wiped her hands on her coveralls and stood up.
Fifty people on that dock went quiet with her.
My mother came down the shell road.
She stopped at the edge of the planks.
"Esme, sweetheart. You haven't answered a single one of my calls."
"You told me not to call."
"I said a lot of things in April." She smiled at the shrimpers. "Families say things."
My father hung back by the SUV with his hands in his pockets.
Lyndon stood behind Annika with his chin up.
Annika was still holding her phone up.
The little red light was on.
"What do you want?" I said.
My mother took an envelope out of her handbag.
"Your little video has been very hard on the Dellingers. And on our business." She held it out. "It's a statement. It says the whole thing was a misunderstanding between childhood friends, and that you regret the way you handled it. You sign it, Annika posts it, and this all goes away."
"No."
"You haven't read it."
"I don't need to."
Her smile got thinner.
She looked past me at the garage, with its rolling door open and its fluorescent lights and Gran's engine blocks lined up on the concrete.
"So this is what you'd rather have," she said. "A shed full of fish motors."
"It's a garage."
"It smells like a bait shop." She glanced at the long tables with the newspaper on them. "And you're feeding your little friends off newspaper. Esme, you've had a home with a pool."
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