He Thought I'd Forget novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: Confabulation

I read the statement twice.

The second time I read it out loud.

It sounded kind.

That was the worst part.

"Confabulation," Jeanine said. "He used that word in court."

"He uses it whenever I'm right."

By noon the bookstore videos had a million views.

By two the comments had turned.

Leave her alone, she's brain damaged.

The sister is using her for money.

That poor man has given her seven years and she humiliates him in public.

Somebody found Jeanine's salon from a reflection in the bookstore window.

By Monday morning the salon had sixty one-star reviews from people who had never had their hair cut in Bellevue.

The voicemail was full.

Jeanine played one on speaker while she unlocked the pink door.

A man's voice, calm and pleased with itself.

"You kidnapped a disabled woman. Everybody knows what you are. Give her back to her husband."

Jeanine deleted it without blinking.

Then she found the printout taped to her door.

The clinic's statement, with KIDNAPPER written across it in red marker.

She peeled it off very carefully, folded it in quarters and put it in her smock pocket.

"For the attorney," she said. "She collects these."

Her first client of the day canceled.

So did her second.

At ten the woman who'd sat under the dryer the week before came in without an appointment.

"I'm here for a trim," she announced. "I don't need one. Cut it anyway."

At ten-thirty, the woman with the foils came in to get her roots touched up a week early.

At eleven, another one.

By lunch, every chair was full of women who didn't need haircuts and wouldn't leave.

I swept.

I couldn't stop sweeping.

My face was on every phone in that room, next to the word confabulation.

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