Phoenix Of Ruin: My Second Life Comes With A Better Man novel · Chapter 5 of 24
Chapter 5: Coming Home
Leigh stood on the steps of the house she grew up in, with the door open and nobody inviting her through.
Conroy put a hand on her back.
"Go in," he said. "He's been waiting three years to be angry at you in person."
She went in.
The hall smelled of lemon polish and old wood, exactly as it had when she was nine.
Her grandfather sat in the big chair in the dining room with his cane across his knees.
He did not look up.
"Sit," he said.
She sat at the far end of the long table.
Her brothers took the chairs along the sides, and none of them said a word.
"You left this house for a man with one suit and a loan," Howard said at last. "You told me I had no right to judge him. You said you would never need us."
"I did," Leigh said.
"Today you called me from a stranger's phone."
"Yes."
"Why?"
She could have told him about the dock.
She could have said she had already died once and come back, and no one would have believed her.
"Because today I told Blaine no," she said. "And I have nowhere safe left to say it."
Howard's cane tapped once on the floor.
"And?"
"And I was wrong about him for eight years," Leigh said. "I was wrong about you for three of them. I'm sorry, Grandfather."
The room was very quiet.
Her third brother cleared his throat. "She's skinnier than she was."
"She's been eating that man's cooking," the second one said.
"Blaine doesn't cook," Leigh said. "I did."
Both brothers stared at her.
Conroy turned his whole chair toward her.
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