The Baby Couldn't Tie Him, The Lie Did novel · Chapter 22 of 32

Chapter 22: Question From the Floor

Mitchell stared at the red dot on my mother's phone.

"Maureen," he said. "Turn that off."

"No."

"That's a private conversation."

"In my home," my mother said. "About my granddaughter. You're lucky I didn't turn it on the day you met my daughter."

He stood up.

For one second I thought he was going to reach for the phone with the baby still in his arms.

He didn't.

He came over to me and held her out, very carefully, the way my mother had shown him.

I took her.

She didn't wake up.

He stood there with his empty hands.

"What are you going to do with it?" he asked me.

"I don't know yet."

That was the truth.

He looked at my mother. At the phone. At the eviction notice on the fridge.

Then he picked up his coat and went down the stairs.

He left the bag from the baby store on the table.

Inside it was a pink knitted hat with a white pompom, and a tag that still said Halloway's.

The phone call came the next morning.

It was my old advisor.

"I've been asked to introduce the keynote at the alumni winter dinner on Wednesday," he said. "In the great hall. Four hundred people. Donors, trustees, half the port."

"Who's the keynote?"

"Our most distinguished young alumnus in industry." He said it the way other people said a swear word. "Mitchell Thornton. 'From Dorm Room to Harbor: How I Built Northlight.' It's printed on the programs."

I didn't say anything.

"I've told the dean I won't be introducing him," my advisor said. "But I'll be in the front row. And I thought you might like a ticket."

My mother didn't want me to go.

"You had a baby two weeks ago."

"I'll be sitting down."

"You said that about Crescent Row."

In the end she kept the baby, and Nathan drove me up the hill in his truck.

He'd put on a jacket over the flannel. It was the first time I'd seen him in one since college.

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