For Our 10th Anniversary, My Husband Gave Me a Green Dress and My Sister a Baby novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Parking Lot

Abel did not sit down beside me.

He stood on the concrete with his hands loose at his sides, and he let me look at him.

"Tell me," I said. "All of it. And don't make it kinder than it was."

"I won't."

He looked at the delivery lane, where a truck was idling with its engine rattling.

"Six years ago in March, Graeme asked me to drive him somewhere. He said his car was in the shop. It was a Tuesday. I thought it was a bank meeting."

"It was Lakeview."

"I sat in the waiting room for an hour. When he came out, he was white and unsteady. He couldn't find the truck in the lot, and it was parked in front of him." Abel's jaw moved. "He sat in my truck and cried. I'd never seen him cry. He said, 'It's me, Abel. It's not her.' He said there was almost no chance he'd ever have a child."

"And you said what?"

"That he had to tell you tonight."

"And he said what?"

"He said he couldn't. He said you'd leave. He said you'd wanted a family since you were twenty-five, and you'd never forgive him for taking it away." Abel's voice had gone rough. "He asked me to sign the form so the clinic wouldn't call you. He said he just needed a few weeks to find the right way. I signed it."

The wind went through my hair.

"A few weeks," I said.

"I believed him."

"For six years."

"I asked him every few months. He'd say, 'Soon,' or, 'After the next sale,' or, 'Don't push me on it, Abel.' And then I'd watch you walk into that clinic by yourself on the fourth Tuesday of the month, and I'd think, tomorrow, I'll say something."

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