Over Before She Loved Me novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Get Out of My Chair

Maureen's apartment door stood open when they got to the third floor.

Dolores Rayburn sat at the little kitchen table with her gloves laid out beside a leather folder.

Maureen stood at the stove with a dish towel in her hands and did not look afraid.

"Joelle," Maureen said. "Dustin. Good, you're here. Mrs. Rayburn was just about to read me something."

"Mother," Dustin said. "Leave."

"Sit down, Dustin."

"No."

"Then stand," Dolores said, and opened the folder. "Mrs. Hartigan, your daughter signed a side letter to the marriage contract three years ago."

"Dolores, stop," Joelle said.

"It says the Rayburn family paid for your transplant as an advance against the marriage. It says the marriage was a purchase, with a fixed term."

She turned a page toward Maureen.

"It says your daughter was paid in kidneys, Mrs. Hartigan. I thought you should know what you are walking around with."

Joelle's face went hot.

Dustin took a step forward, and Maureen lifted one hand to stop him.

"Let her finish," Maureen said.

She turned off the burner under the soup.

She took her glasses off, wiped them on the towel and put them back on.

"Mrs. Rayburn," she said. "I was a school cook for thirty-one years."

"I'm sure that was honest work."

"It was. And in thirty-one years I fed about forty thousand children and learned to tell when one was lying about a stomachache."

Dolores's mouth tightened.

"I never read your paper," Maureen said. "But I knew something was bought the week she signed it."

Joelle stared at her.

"Mom."

"You think I didn't see you come home with that envelope and sit in the car for an hour? Nobody sits in a car that long over good news. I never asked, honey, because you didn't want to say."

Maureen turned back to Dolores.

"I worked out what it was. A donor fund and a husband in one month is not luck. I let her keep it to herself, and I'll tell you why. I'd have sold the other kidney myself if it bought her a chance to see thirty."

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