Taken in My Sleep by My Stepfather David and His Friends novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Wrong Day

Ellis's POV

I sat in my car at the bottom of the cemetery hill with both hands on the wheel and did not start the engine.

I had spent fourteen months arranging my face for the day that letter turned up.

It had not helped.

The passenger door opened, and Zelda got in.

She had my coat over her arm, and my glasses in her hand.

"You left these," she said.

"Thank you."

I took them and did not put them on.

She shut the door, and the little car filled up with her, with her hair and her mother's yellow cardigan and the smell of maple leaves.

"I'm a doctor," I said, because I had to say it before she did.

"I know."

"I told your mother she had days. I looked at her numbers on the Thursday and I was sure, Zelda. I was sure enough to tell David he could go."

"My mother told him to go."

"I let him. I said it was safe." My voice cracked on the word. "He's carried that for fourteen months and let you think he was careless. I've watched him do it. I haven't said a word."

"Why?"

"Because it was easier to be the man who kept his friend's secret than the man who got it wrong."

She was quiet.

Her hand came across the seat and took my wrist, with two fingers on the inside, where I'd once taken hers.

"You've got a fast pulse for someone who's calm," she said.

"I'm not calm."

"I know. You took mine on Thursday, without asking."

"I apologized."

"You didn't."

"I wanted to know it was real."

Her eyes were green and wet and very steady.

"Ellis, she wrote that you couldn't take it on."

"I can't help it."

"Then let me take some of it."

I turned my head, and I saw her mouth, and I lost every sentence I had.

"Come home with me," I said. "I don't want to do this in a car."

My house was a plain brick two-story at the end of a road behind the hospital.

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