I Was Billed For Every Minute Of Their Love novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Tea at Four

The tearoom was on the top floor of a hotel my parents had used for client lunches since I was small.

My mother had booked the private room with the window, and the table was set for two.

There was a silver pot, a plate of lemon cakes, and a little brass timer next to the sugar bowl, set for four minutes.

I sat down in my work cardigan.

Bev had offered to come, and I had said no, and she had put a grilled cheese in foil in my bag anyway.

"You came," Estelle said.

"You paid for my time."

"I did not pay. It was a joke, darling."

"It didn't sound like one."

She poured, and the timer ticked between us.

For a moment she looked like what she had been at my christening photos, a pretty woman in a good dress, trying not to be too much.

"I heard the broadcast," she said. "Your father had it on in the car. He didn't say a word for twenty minutes, which is the longest silence of his life."

"I'm glad it was educational."

"Elizabeth, I'm going to show you something. You may not want it."

She opened her handbag and took out a small brass stopwatch, scratched and old, with a worn crown.

She set it on the white tablecloth.

"He bought it the week you were born," she said. "I was still in the hospital bed. He clicked it when the nurse put you in my arms, and he held it up and said, Let's see how efficient she is."

I looked at the stopwatch.

He carried a newer one now, but I had seen this one all my life in the drawer of her dressing table.

I had never once asked where it came from.

"He timed my feeding," Estelle said. "He timed your first night. He said we were building a person, and a person should have a schedule."

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