He Came Back for Both of Us novel · Chapter 30 of 32
Chapter 30: Coming Home
He didn't follow me down the steps.
When I looked back from the sidewalk, he was still standing at the top with his fist full of torn paper, watching me go.
He looked ready to stand there all summer if he had to.
Ollie turned the phone off.
"Well," he said. "I'm going to need a minute."
"You're crying."
"I'm allergic to horses."
August was hot and wet and full of small things.
Benji started preschool at a little church school three blocks away.
He wore the shark hat on the first day and refused to take it off.
The teacher handed me a clipboard at the door. Photo permissions, for the school's page.
I checked the box that said No.
Then I took one picture of him myself, on the front steps of the house, holding Plates and squinting at me.
I didn't post it.
I printed it at the drugstore and put it on the refrigerator next to my first check.
When I picked him up that afternoon, he climbed into his car seat looking very satisfied.
"How was it?"
"Actually, good," he said. "I'm the only one who knows what a stegosaurus eats."
"What does a stegosaurus eat?"
"Ferns," he said. "Nobody else knew. They're babies."
The label in Nashville sent a contract in the second week.
This time I didn't sign it on a mattress with sweet tea.
My lawyer read every page twice, once as my lawyer and once as a mother, and sent back eleven changes.
They took nine.
I owned every song. They could sell them for seven years. Nobody got my login, my face or my child.
I signed it at the carriage house table with my own pen, on a video call, with my lawyer watching.
Felicity Dunagan. No company in front of it.
My lawyer took off her glasses.
"That," she said, "is a standard contract."
Jameson started packing.
He did it the way he did everything. Labeled boxes, stacked against the wall of the front hall, in order.
He didn't say anything about it.
He kept knocking. He kept taking Wednesdays. He kept the side door open until eleven.
He never once asked me if I'd decided.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of He Came Back for Both of Us are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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