My Wife's Secret Son Isn't Mine novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Willa's POV

Willa's POV

Dane stood over my son's drawing with his fists open, and for the first time since I'd known him he had nothing to say.

I picked it up off the floor.

I folded it on its old creases and put it in my bag.

Two men in the crowd, off-duty deputies by their haircuts, took him by the elbows.

He didn't fight them.

"Willa," he said, as they turned him. "Tell him I..."

"Write it down," I said. "Give it to the judge."

He looked at me like a stranger.

I think it was the first time he had seen me.

They walked him out through two hundred phones.

I found Lydia on the curb by the highway, in the green dress, with her shoes in her hand.

She did not stand when I sat down.

We watched the trucks go by for a while.

"I'll sign anything," she said. "Whatever you want. Put your name on it."

"I will."

"I wanted him so badly, Willa."

"I know you did."

"I'm not asking you to like me."

"Good," I said. "Because I'm going to be fair to you, and it will be a lot of work."

She laughed, and then she was crying, and I put my arm around her because her shoulders were so thin.

I felt nothing I had a name for.

On Monday morning we stood in the county courthouse on a gray tile floor that smelled of floor wax.

Dane's lawyer had resigned on Sunday night, and the man who took his place read the transcript of the tape in the hallway and went the color of oatmeal.

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