Text From the Future: Dump Your Girlfriend novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Count It

Toby's mother came to our porch four times in four days, and my mother told her four times that I was in Massachusetts.

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I was home, and she found me anyway.

I was in the Ashford Market with my mother and Lena, in the aisle with the canned cranberry sauce.

Lena was pushing the cart and reading every ingredient label out loud.

"This one has corn syrup," she said. "Do your people have a position on corn syrup?"

"My people have a position on everything," my mother said. "Put it back."

Dad had stayed home to bleach the kitchen floor. He had said Lena was the first person to ask him about freight routes in his life, and then he had made her a sandwich.

I was smiling at the cranberries when the cart behind us stopped.

"Malcolm Lindahl."

I turned around.

Toby's mother was a short, square woman with gray in her hair and a red vest over her sweater.

The vest said DUNLEVY HARDWARE. Her name tag said OWNER.

She held a bank envelope in both hands, and her knuckles were white on it.

"This isn't the place," my mother said. Her voice was very even.

"I know it's not. I've tried your house four times." She didn't look at my mother. She looked at me. "I'm not leaving it any longer."

Two women at the end of the aisle had stopped with their carts.

A man in a Carhartt jacket put down a can of soup.

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