I Was Counting Down To Leave Him novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: Nothing Left to Manage
Langston's POV
Flora gave me one answer in the lobby, with thirty reporters watching.
"Tonight," she said. "Eight o'clock, the cottage. Not before."
Then she turned and went back to the table where Cushing's people were stacking papers.
I stood in the middle of the oak floor and understood I had nothing left to do for nine hours.
So I went to Lydia's.
She had rented a flat above the harbor for the summer, and the door was open.
She was packing.
Two suitcases lay open on the bed, and she was folding the cream dress into tissue paper with her back to me.
"You came to say goodbye," she said. "That's sweet."
"I came to ask you something."
"Go on."
"Did you ever want the hotel?"
She laughed, once.
"I wanted the picture," she said. "Your mother's picture. You and me on the terrace, ribbon-cutting, the founders. I wanted to be in it."
"You told me Flora would sign it over. You said she'd do anything to keep me."
"She would have. For three years she did." Lydia zipped a bag. "You're angry at the wrong woman, Langston. I told you to tell her. I told you on the day of the courthouse, I told you every Christmas. You said after the launch."
"I know."
"Every time. You always said after."
I sat on the edge of the bed, because my legs would not hold me.
"I don't love you," I said.
She went still, with the tissue paper in her hands.
"I think I've known since college," I said. "I loved having someone who agreed with me. It's not the same thing, and I let you think it was, and I let my mother build a whole life on it."
"Thank you for the diagnosis."
"I'm sorry."
"No, you're not." She said it almost kindly. "You're sorry it's over. You haven't been sorry about a single thing you did to her."
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